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For nearly three years now, President Joe Biden has said that the US stands with Ukraine and will support its ability to defend itself.
That support has come through diplomatic cooperation, intelligence sharing, and most significantly, military aid.
What Biden has said he won’t do is put US boots on the ground, according to Robert Hamilton, a retired US Army colonel with the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.
Christopher Kinsey, a professor of international security at King’s College London, expanded on that: “They can’t deploy US troops — that would be political suicide for them, to put it bluntly.”
He said that there are multiple reasons why the US won’t send regular troops into Ukraine.
“I don’t believe there’s any appetite from the US public to put uniformed personnel on the ground. It would also be seen as an escalation of the war, and it’s not an escalation they would want.”
There are other reasons, though, why the US would want to send personnel into Ukraine, and that’s where military contractors come into the picture.
“A lot of them are former military people, because to get the training, to service this type of equipment, you don’t develop that skill outside of the military.”
“Whether it’s a patriot air defense system, or an M1 tank, or an F-16 or whatever, what we’re talking about here in Ukraine is you got contractors who service specialized equipment that either the US military, or the partner nation, in this case Ukraine, doesn’t have the capability to do that level of maintenance itself,” Hamilton said.
He said that the US and other countries have already done this type of maintenance work outside of Ukraine’s borders. But that model has been too slow and too costly. So, the contractors will be closer to where the fight is.
Hamilton said these contractors get paid well, because they have highly specialized skills and most of them know how to work in a war zone.
“I think the Russians, if they know where they are, they will target them, and so there will be an operational security requirement that’s going to be pretty high, to make sure that the Russians don’t know where they work, don’t know where they live, their profile is low, they’re not going to be driving around in vehicles with the name of the company emblazoned on the door.”
And that’s another reason why, according to Kinsey, contractors are a useful resource for governments.
“What they’re able to do is they can escalate up, and they can escalate back down, and they can do that out of sight of the public. Also there’s this notion of deniability, the American government can’t be blamed if things go wrong, they will blame the contractor.”
Kinsey said that one of the biggest critiques against the use of military contractors is that they come with less transparency and accountability.
“You can bypass Congress. So, that’s another reason why people are opposed to it, it makes actually engaging in war easier, because you don’t have society to buy in, in this respect, because you don’t need conscription.”
In this case, the contractors that are being sent to Ukraine will be limited to upkeeping and repairing weapons systems. So, they won’t be directly involved in fighting, and likely won’t be positioned near the front lines. However, Kinsey said that their presence in Ukraine already sends a message to Russia.
“We may not be putting ground troops in, but we’re certainly putting people in with weapons systems that know how to use these weapons systems. So, if you don’t toe the line, then I’ll just increase the number of contractors.”
According to recent polls, a significant portion of the US public does not support continued aid for Ukraine. That’s especially true among Republicans. So, whether the incoming Trump administration will carry on with this policy remains a question.
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National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has been on a walking journey since 2013, tracing the footsteps of early human migration from Africa across the planet.
Along the way, he’s been reporting on what he sees in a project called Out of Eden Walk. His latest essay is postmarked in Danyang, South Korea, near an archeological zone with a wealth of Stone Age relics.
Salopek joined The World’s Host Carolyn Beeler to discuss what he learned about the people of the Stone Age and how their tools withstood time and nature.
Carolyn Beeler: So, remind us of the timeline here. How old are Stone Age relics? When was that period?Paul Salopek: Here in South Korea — it changes around the world, of course, depending on when early Homo sapiens arrived on the scene — But here, these particular stone tools are between 46,000 years and maybe about 10,000 years old. So, quite a span. If I remember right, the Stone Age came as humans transitioned from a hunting and gathering lifestyle to farming. Which parts of the world had our ancestors reached by this period? Obviously Korea, where you found those tools.Yeah, I think pretty much what we call today the “Old World,” so it would be Africa, where we originated as a species about 300,000 years ago, a long time ago. And again, just to be clear, because often people get it confused, we’re talking right now about Homo sapiens, right? Our species. People who, if they sat down next to us at a restaurant, we wouldn’t notice any difference at all because it would be anatomically identical, or at least close. So, from 300,000 years ago till only about 11,000 years ago, it was all the Stone Age. And, you know, scientists break it up into different eras. But, basically, that was the Stone Age. As an archeologist told me recently here in Korea, he said, “Paul, if we take into account the length of our species’ time spent in the Stone Age, if we convert it to like one day, one 24-hour period, we spent 23 hours and 55 minutes of our species history in the Stone Age, and only the last five minutes in recorded history.”Archaeologists Jong Yoon Woo (foreground) and Hyeong Woo Lee take in a Stone Age diorama at the Suyanggae site museum in South Korea. Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkIt was a long period. And you said humans had reached basically the “Old World” by that period. So, everything but the Americas?You know, the Americas is still a bit of an enigma. The traditional consensus is that early, anatomically modern Homo sapiens crossed, you know, the Alaskan Siberia land bridge about 12,000 years ago. Some evidence is starting to show that they came even earlier, and it might have been a maritime migration in small, kind of, canoes along the coast, maybe as early as 20,000 years ago. There are these amazing sites in South America where more research is being done.The Namhan River in central South Korea, an ancient corridor of human migration. Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkWe’re still learning a lot about this lengthy period in our history. Let’s return to the archeological zone in Danyang. What kinds of tools did you see? What do they look like?Well, basically, lots of blades, cores. Back then, people made stone tools by taking what’s called a “core,” like a circular rock, and hitting it with a stone hammer — another generally circular rock — knocking off blades. Then, they would microchip those blades to turn them into points, cutters, scrapers or basically whatever you have in your kitchen cabinet to process food. When we go to Stone Age sites, we find that … it’s basically a kitchen, a Stone Age kitchen, with all the tools necessary to break bones, get marrow, strip hides off animals, cut open the big beasts and little beasts, you name it. What did you learn about the people who made those tools when you were at this archeological zone?Carolyn, here is one of the amazing things about human history — and it reflects on my project because, as you noted, I’m following the footsteps of these early anatomical, modern people around the world — [which] is that we know very little about them. They discovered the world for us. They traveled in bands of 25 to 40. [They] were hunter-gatherers, as you mentioned. They were women, men, old people, kids. What I like to remind my readers is that family units discovered the world and gave us the world. It wasn’t the mighty explorer, this kind of masculine, you know, patriarchal figure. Even children discovered the world for us. They were masters of surviving on the environment. These stone tools are precision instruments. Basically, they were brilliant at what they did. They weren’t primitive at all. Archaeologists Jong Yoon Woo and Hyeong Woo Lee walk a “disco tunnel” at the museum housing Stone Age artifacts at Suyanggae, South Korea. “The local government thought that prehistory was boring,” Woo said. Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkI gather that the senior archeologists at this site showed you one relic that he said was unlike anything else discovered in Asia. What was it, and what do people think it was used for?Yeah, very mysterious stone. So, they dug up tens of thousands of stone tools, flakes, points, grinders and choppers. But they found this one remarkable stone. It’s about the size of a human hand. It’s long and elongated. It’s polished. But it has 23 very precisely spaced notches carved into its surface, almost like a ruler. So, the question is, “Is this our first yardstick?” This piece, I think, is between 18,000 and maybe 40,000 years old. It’s really, really, really old. And getting into the heads of the people who made it way back before written history is rather difficult today, right? What are people thinking? What is their imagination doing? What are they dreaming? We can only conjecture about what this was meant for, but I imagined, “God, this is the beginning of measuring out the universe, right?” That led to all this infrastructure I saw around me while walking down this river alley. From concrete superhighways to, you know, the microcomputer on my phone. Maybe it all started near Danyang on this muddy river in Korea.Suyanggae’s famous prehistoric “measuring tool” is featured in a timeline at the site’s museum in South Korea. It is the elongated object at the middle right. Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkSo, you think a lot about ancient history when you see one of these tools that one of our ancestors would have made out of a rock. What do you reflect on?Entire systems of knowledge, vast systems of knowledge that were deep and mysterious and highly skilled and multifaceted ass anything we have today … that’s gone. It’s vanished. We just mentioned, Carolyn, earlier that 99.5% of our history was built on stone tool technology. Stone tools carved open ecosystems for us to get energy through, you know, animal protein, to build our brains, to build cultures, to build our cities, eventually. But it’s all gone. How many people know how to make a stone tool today? Nobody, except a few archeologists. When I hold these in my hand, they vibrate with this hidden power of a lost way of life, which was nomadic. It was moving through landscapes like water. Not settled the way we are by agriculture, kind of rooted in place.I often wonder what our era of history will leave behind for archeologists and how much knowledge in our memory chips and electronics will just be gone when technology has moved on so far that a motherboard is a mysterious object.You know, I’m sitting in an inexpensive motel in Asia right now, looking around this room as I’m talking to you, And I’m not sure that anything much will survive 40,000 years the way these stone tools in Danyang did.Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.
Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonders of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
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In 1989, the East German band Karat had it all: black leather blazers, feathered mullets and gold records, some even across the border in West Germany.
Then suddenly, everything changed for socialist East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic. Massive protests brought down the Berlin Wall, along with the GDR regime.
Within a year, there was just one unified Germany — and in it, no one wanted to listen to Karat, according to the band’s guitarist Bernd Römer.
More than 1,200 people flooded the GDR-era KuK concert hall in the eastern city of Gera in Germany for Karat’s nearly sold-out show.Marcus Teply/The WorldIt wasn’t just Karat, or East German music. It was everything. Given access to the Western pop culture that had been forbidden for decades, East Germans dumped GDR culture for Coca-Cola and the Rolling Stones. And hundreds of thousands of people left for the West.
“Not much of the culture of the GDR survived, and that’s sad,” Römer said.
And what’s left has been treated as second-class, according to Karat singer Claudius Dreilich, the son of Karat’s original singer Herbert Dreilich, who died in 2004.
But these days, memories of former East Germany are coming back into style.
Karat performed in the Kultur- und Kongresszentrum (KuK) concert hall located in the eastern German city of Gera.Marcus Teply/The WorldOnce mocked, East German Trabant and Wartburg classic cars are now registered in record numbers in Germany’s eastern states. Vita Cola, the GDR’s version of Coca-Cola, is the best-selling soda in the eastern state of Thüringen.
And a new Thüringen oldies station called Antenne Ostalgie plays hits from the days of socialism. Its name is a portmanteau of the German words for east and nostalgia — and its jingle goes, “It wasn’t all s— after all.”
Meanwhile, Karat is having its best year since the Berlin Wall came down.
On a recent Friday night, more than 1,200 people flooded the GDR-era Kultur- und Kongresszentrum concert hall in Thüringen’s city of Gera — once the GDR’s provincial capital and industrial hub — for Karat’s nearly sold-out show.
Rotkäppchen is an East German brand of sparkling wine that is another example of an old product that has made a comeback.Marcus Teply/The WorldChanging times have also impacted the economy. In 2014, Gera became the first German city ever to declare bankruptcy. Former East Germany is still poorer than the former West, and people still continue to move away. Politics reflect the dark mood, with strong support for opposition parties on both the far-left and far-right.
“When capitalism came, the Wessis [West Germans] just ran us right over,” Maik Schmidt said as he drank a beer in the KuK lobby before the show. He added that reunification had drained the East dry, and that today’s German government cares more about foreigners than its own people.
“Most people would rather have the East times back,” he said. “Today people only think about themselves. … It’s all only about money, only money.”
Karat will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025.Marcus Teply/The WorldSurveys show that many people in what was formerly the East feel homesick for the GDR, see themselves on the losing side of history or think some things were better under socialism.
“They are creating an image of the good old past times which never existed,” said Anna Kaminsky, director of the federal foundation tasked with coming to terms with the GDR’s legacy. “Most of these people, deep inside, know that this is not correct.”
But, she agreed, the transition from the GDR was tough, especially for older people. Democracy turned out to be harder than people had hoped. Generations of bad news about the East created feelings of inferiority that still resonate today.
Karat remains one of the oldest and most popular GDR-era bands, packing concert halls in both former East and West German cities.Marcus Teply/The World“A lot of people in the East say, ‘We don’t feel heard, we don’t feel seen,’” she said.
But when the lights went down in Gera, and Römer’s guitar started to wail, the old days and the people who remembered them were the stars of the show.
The crowd stomped, clapped a beat and sang every word to Karat’s big hits. Ghosts of old East-West rivalries made a guest appearance when Dreilich took a break between songs to tell the audience about an interview backstage.
“Foreign press! Not from the East,” he joked, to chuckles from the crowd.
“From the West,” he intoned, “from America.” The chuckles stopped, replaced by silence and a few jeers.
Karat is going to be recording a new album, to be released on vinyl and recorded in the eastern Germany.Marcus Teply/The WorldStill, 35 years after reunification, Dreilich, Römer and their bandmates agreed that Karat is not an East German or West German band, but a German one. They’re packing concert halls, not just in Gera, but in big formerly Western cities like Hamburg and Munich, too. Today they’re some of the oldest surviving rockers in the whole country — East or West.
In 2025, Karat will mark its 50th anniversary, and to celebrate, the band is cutting a new album. Dreilich told the audience in Gera that it’s going to be on vinyl, just like in the old days.
And just like in the old days, he added, Karat will record it in the East.
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At first glance, the new school year on Columbia’s campus seems like any other. But, if you look closer, you’ll notice private security units standing guard at the school’s main entrances, scanning university IDs.
Mobile billboards are back (some call them ‘doxxing trucks’), displaying on LED screens names and photos of student protesters under the label “Columbia’s leading antisemites.”
Once wide open to foot traffic on Broadway and Amsterdam avenues, the campus gates are now narrowed to small, fenced-in entry points.
“I think there is a little bit of dread that I’m feeling in going back to school because, considering the state that we left this, like the state of affairs that was going on when we last were there …” said Layla, an undergraduate student at the university.
Layla did not want her last name used because she feared being targeted by people with opposing views. She is one of the thousands of students back on campus after the summer break and who participated in the protests last spring.
The protests by students at Columbia were in support of Palestinians shortly after Israel launched its war on Gaza following the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks in Israel.
Dozens of tents packed the central lawn of Columbia’s campus.
During downtime, campers often shared donated meals, did homework or enjoyed a rest on the lawn. Courtesy of Yasmeen AltajiSimilar protests erupted on more than 100 campuses across the country, but what happened at Columbia — and what followed it — brought this student movement to the global stage.
“I know that even though the summer has passed by, a lot of people are feeling rejuvenated, in a way, and know that the work for Palestine and demanding justice and divestment is not behind us,” Layla said. “… And, in fact, now would only be the time to work harder to get divestment.”
Protesters called on Columbia to disclose its investments in, or financial ties to, companies affiliated with Israel. And then, they demanded the university cut those ties.
The movement mirrored past protests at Columbia in the 1960s and ’80s against the war in Vietnam and apartheid South Africa, respectively. Students even occupied Hamilton Hall on campus in April, around the anniversary date of their predecessors doing the same in 1985.
A student protester waves a Palestinian flag above Hamilton Hall on the campus of Columbia University in New York, April 30, 2024.Mary Altaffer/AP/FileBut, as in the ’60s, this time, the university president called New York City police onto the private campus, and 100 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested.
“I think a lot of people were shaken up…” Layla said. “And, you know, their minds were kind of on the 100 students that had just been arrested before their eyes.”
During the turmoil of those days, organizers created time for students to come together.
Jewish students hosted Passover seders inside a warmly lit tent, chanting, singing and sharing meals with other campers. One of the Jewish students, Soph Askanase, also spoke at a press conference hosted by Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student groups calling for divestment.
“Jewish students, including myself, gathered and said the Shehecheyanu, the Jewish prayer used from our joyous occasions. ‘Blessed are you, Adonai, our God, sovereign of all who has kept us alive, sustained us and brought us to this season because we indeed are blessed.’”
Muslim students led salat, or prayers, while peers held up blankets, even forming makeshift barriers to block harassment from hecklers.
Members of the “Gaza solidarity encampment” frequently set aside time for interfaith prayer, including the daily five Islamic salat. After bouts of harassment and unsolicited recordings from counter-protesters during prayer, non-Muslim campers held up tarps and keffiyehs for the privacy of their peers.Courtesy of Yasmeen AltajiThere was also time for yoga and a corner for arts and crafts.
There was a lot of music — Arabic music, sometimes Middle Eastern pop. Music was usually performed live by students, who sang classical Arabic muwashahat and Palestinian folk songs.
Student musicians hosted a night of performance during the encampment’s early days. The multi-instrumental ensemble led group songs in the Palestinian and broader Middle Eastern traditions.Courtesy of Yasmeen AltajiLayla herself performed a traditional Palestinian folk song called “Yamma Mweil el Hawa,” which laments life under occupation.
Columbia University students say this sign was put up on campus at the start of the new academic year after the university faced campuswide protests against the war in Gaza.Courtesy of Columbia University students“It feels really, really nice to feel like I have gained a whole new community, and we’re not related in any way whatsoever, but except for the fact that we’re here for Gaza,” she said. “And I feel like that’s the most beautiful way to be brought together. I gained so much from this whole experience, and it’s totally transformed my experience as a Columbia student.”
But after two weeks, police raided the campus and dismantled the encampment. The administration is taking measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Those measures include rules prohibiting camping, unauthorized tents or structures and noise amplification.
Still, the changes — or the ones supposed to come — remain ambiguous.
Nina Berman teaches at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She said she’d seen this movement before when she was a student there in the 1980s, but not like this.
“I didn’t participate, but I was certainly on campus, and from my understanding, you know, buildings were taken over,” Berman recalled. “More people were involved. The NYPD was not called onto campus.”
Today, Berman said, walking on campus is just one security checkpoint after another.
“I’m just feeling emotionally exhausted and just really, really sad and disappointed in the world,” student Layla said. “But I know there’s no better place to be than at a university, demanding, among other students that also feel emotionally and morally driven to fight for divestment. We’re at a great place to do that alongside one another.”
Organizers have made it clear that they don’t intend to stop, despite the increasing weight of the situation in Gaza and mounting pressure from their school.
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Earlier this year, Urgen Tamang spent weeks being taken from one Russian military training camp to another.
The 47-year-old Indian national was being taught how to fire weapons. Tamang was among the foreign mercenaries, or soldiers for hire, fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
But Tamang hadn’t signed up to be a part of Russia’s war — he was tricked into joining it.
“They’re going to take me to the front line in a few days to fight against Ukraine,” Tamang said into a selfie camera as he recorded a video, a last-ditch effort to save himself. “I am pleading with the Indian government, please save me.”
Tamang is not alone. Ninety-one Indians have been duped into joining the Russian army, according to the Indian government. These men, as well as thousands of others from Nepal and Sri Lanka, went to Russia in search of greener pastures. Their stories reveal a human trafficking network that’s been feeding off of economic despair in South Asia.
Tamang’s video ended up saving his life, but others haven’t been so lucky. Eight Indians and over 40 Nepalese have died fighting on Russia’s side.
An opportunity and a trapIn Surat, western India, Ashwin Mangukiya sat on the floor of his small warehouse surrounded by bundles of women’s clothes. His eldest son, Hemil Mangukiya, also used to work in the textile business before he stumbled on a YouTube video last year about a work opportunity in Russia.
“The job was to be a helper in the Russian army,” Ashwin Mangukiya said, which essentially meant loading up trucks full of food or transporting other supplies. “We were told it would not involve any fighting or going to the battlefield.”
At first, Ashwin Mangukiya was nervous about sending the 23-year-old to Russia, but his son insisted. He was promised a salary five times what he was earning in India, and Russian citizenship within six months.
Ashwin Mangukiya eventually agreed and traveled to Mumbai to drop off his son. There, the recruitment agents again assured him that the job was safe.
Within weeks of landing in Russia, the real work that Hemil Mangukiya had signed up for became clear — he was headed for the front line.
Ashwin Mangukiya scrolled through his phone gallery to show photos that Hemil Mangukiya had sent him posing in an airport terminal and standing in a wooded area wearing a military uniform. In one picture, he’s carrying a big gun. These were some of his last photos — in February, Hemil Mangukiya was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike.
The news of Hemil Mangukiya’s death came as a shock to his family who had been in regular touch with him, trying to figure out how to get him back safely.
“I should have never let him go,” his father said.
Not enough jobsThese days, Ashwin Mangukiya said, he feels more angry than sad. He blames the traffickers posing as recruitment agents who misled his son, but also the economic circumstances that led his son to look for work abroad.
“Youngsters today study and work hard, but they don’t find well-paying jobs in India, so what will they do?” he said.
India has a disproportionate number of young people looking for work — more than half of Indians are under 30. But economists say India has not been able to create enough jobs for its growing young population. The jobs that are available are often unstable, said labor rights activist Chandan Kumar.
“You can’t even imagine the level of precarity. When I say ‘precarity,’ it includes working conditions, it includes the wages, includes access to social security,” Kumar said, adding that even after 14-hour work days, minimum wages are often not guaranteed, let alone living wages.
As a result, Indians are seeking better opportunities overseas — even if that means taking huge risks. Thousands of Indians have lined up for blue-collar jobs in Israel, despite the escalating conflict in the Middle East.
Indian workers aspiring to be hired for jobs in Israel fill their forms during a recruitment drive in Lucknow, India, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024.Rajesh Kumar Singh/APKumar appeals to Indians to avoid taking up jobs in conflict-ridden countries, however well-paying they may seem.
“I would sincerely, humbly with the folded hand, encourage my brothers and sisters not to travel in these countries and get a job,” Kumar said. “Because if Indian workers die, who will take the responsibility?”
Fraudulent agents are preying on economic insecurity in India, and job scams are on the rise. Another human trafficking racket emerged recently in Cambodia where thousands of Indians were lured there under the pretense of well-paying jobs, but were forced to commit cybercrimes; 250 of them have been rescued so far.
Indian law enforcement has arrested four people in connection to the Russian army job scam and dozens of Indians have returned in recent months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But 20 Indians are yet to return from Russia, the Indian government said in late October.
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Dominique Morisseau is a Haitian American playwright, who was raised in Detroit, Michigan. She’s written extensively about her native city, but her newest, and perhaps most autobiographical, play shines its light on the island nation where her father was born.
It’s called “Bad Kreyòl” — Kreyòl is the language spoken in Haiti, sometimes called Haitian Creole — and it looks at a pair of cousins, one from America, the other from Haiti, negotiating a difficult relationship. The play, co-produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club, is having its world premiere at New York’s Signature Theatre through Dec. 1 and has received some glowing reviews.
Morisseau began working on her play long before US president-elect Donald Trump uttered falsehoods about legal Haitian immigrants in Ohio. She said she sees similarities in negative attitudes between where she grew up and where her father grew up.
“To me, Haiti is the Detroit of the world,” the playwright said. “I’ve heard the same negative things about Haiti that I’ve heard about Detroit and vice versa. Two very strong versions of my identity have been fraught with media negativity about who I am. It takes a strong group of people to resist that and gives me a sense of pride and power.”
So, Morisseau’s new play is her first set in Haiti. And it’s been gestating for a long time.
“When I took a trip with my father in 2014 back to his homeland to try to visit places I thought we lost in the earthquake, I went to Haiti to write a very different play,” she said. “I had not been to Haiti, just like the character in this play since I was like a toddler, actually.”
Simone, a half African American and half Haitian woman, is the star of the play “Bad Kreyòl.”Courtesy of Matthew Murphy“Bad Kreyòl” is written from the perspective of a Haitian American visiting the country and coming to grips with a culture that is beautiful and perplexing, familiar yet foreign.
The central character’s name is Simone, and at one point, she says: “I’ve always been in between worlds. Half this, half that. I don’t know where I belong. I’m a Haitian who doesn’t speak Kreyòl. I’m a Black American who’s half Haitian. Do you know when I was a kid, the kids in my class didn’t even know where Haiti was?”
“She speaks, you know, quote-unquote bad Kreyòl,” said Kelly McCreary, the actress who plays Simone, and is well-known to audiences as a cast member of Grey’s Anatomy. “But is she also, like bad at being Haitian, you know,” she added laughing.
McCreary has a long collaborative relationship with Morisseau and is well aware that she’s a stand-in for the playwright. “It is such an honor to be Dominique’s avatar here in this play,” McCreary said. “I don’t know if she would describe it that way. But I have been fortunate over the course of my career in theater to play a version of her in a few of her plays.”
Simone wants not just to reconnect with her cousin, Gigi, who runs a high-end boutique in Port-au-Prince, after losing their grandmother, she wants to see what NGOs are doing in Haiti after the earthquake. She tries to help a former prostitute who’s now making pillows and is being sexually harassed. And she advocates for Pita, who is a restavek.
Simone befriends and tries to help a former prostitute who’s now making pillows. Courtesy of Matthew Murphy
“Restavek in Haiti,” Morisseau explained, “generally they’re children who were raised in rural areas and their parents sort of send them off to more affluent families in the city in order to work for those families and in exchange for getting an education and getting, sort of like, better access to a better quality of life. And in many ways, those situations turn quite abusive.”
And, while Pita is treated as a family member by Simone’s cousin, he’s also her servant and a closeted gay man in a country where coming out can get you beaten up or killed.
“I think of some individuals I know in Haiti or who are also from Haiti, who I look at them in my American lens and I’m like, ‘oh, I know what’s going on: You’re gay or you’re queer, you’re fabulous,’” said actor Jude Tibeau, who plays Pita and is one of the four Haitian Americans in the cast. “I get it. But you won’t identify as gay or you don’t say you’re gay to everyone else or we’re not talking about it and we’re being secretive and we’re like — shh shh shh — that’s not something we talk about.”
Simone also befriends Pita, a restavek and closeted gay man, in a country where coming out can result in violence.Courtesy of Matthew MurphyIn the play, Pita joins a real Haitian organization called KOURAJ, which is for the LGBTQ+ community. “Bad Kreyòl” is filled with real culturally specific details about Haiti, but director Tiffany Nichole Greene said, in many ways, “we are telling a universal story. And it was really important to me that we dig into the nuance and the layers and the depths and the complications of being a human; finding joy, finding peace, surviving and finding self-worth.”
And, in a time, when so many immigrants have been demeaned and scapegoated, she added: “Isn’t it funny how art shows up right on time?”
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Fierce winds, driving rain, severe thunderstorms: Hurricanes have always been cataclysmic weather events. But climate change appears to be supercharging them.
Researchers are racing to pin down the forces driving these changes, and what the future holds. Science reporter Ari Daniel has the story.
Listen to the story by clicking the audio player above.
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More than a week on from the deadly floods that destroyed parts of eastern Spain and led to the deaths of at least 218 people, recriminations are flying over who should be held responsible.
In Germany, three years after catastrophic floods hit the northwest region of the country, questions of accountability are still being asked.
Europe is the fastest-warming continent on earth but scientists say many local governments are ill-prepared for weather related disasters. The World’s Europe Correspondent Orla Barry reports.
Listen to the story by clicking the audio player above.
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As the death toll rises and the damage to homes and infrastructure becomes clear, authorities are saying this could be the worst flooding disaster in Spain’s modern history.
More than 200 people have died and nearly a hundred others remain missing. The European Space Agency said that satellite images from Oct. 31 showed water covering an area of about 38,600 acres.
Gerry Hadden reports from the devastated village of Paiporta on how residents have started cleaning up while trying to make sense of what happened.
Listen to the story by clicking the audio player above.
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The world is getting stormier, and the UN blames the increase in weather-related disasters on climate change. Bangladesh has been hit especially hard, but these days, cyclones there result in very few casualties. That’s thanks to a homegrown warning system.
Have Bangladeshis cracked the code to preventing storm deaths, and if so, is the strategy replicable elsewhere? The World’s Patrick Winn reports.
Listen to the story by clicking the audio player above.
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The first thing you see when you step into the Campo del Cielo nature reserve parking lot is what looks like a large bowl in the ground about half the size of a football field.
It’s a crater made by a massive meteorite. One of thousands that peppered this whole area roughly 4,000 years ago.
The reserve has been a place for people to see some of the largest meteorites in the world. But Argentina has been trying for years to prevent the theft of the space rocks.
Just behind it is an interactive museum, with hundreds of meteorites on display.
Gancedo meteorite display in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Michael Fox/The World“The experience is magnificent,” said Alexis Saul, who was visiting with his wife and daughter, from a couple of hours away. “It’s so important for the world. We need to value this place so much more than we do.”
Groups of green parrots flew overhead. On a short walk around the area, a row of huge meteorites can be seen, including the second and third largest in the world, weighing almost 29 and 31 metric tons, respectively. They sit on large circular slabs of concrete and visitors can walk right up to them and touch and hug them. It’s a pretty incredible experience.
Ayelen Santillán has worked as the main guide at the park for the past decade. She said there’s no place like this on the planet.
“This is unique, because although the largest meteorite is in Africa, you don’t have the ability to get up close like you do with these meteorites,” she said.
Close-up of Gancedo meteorite in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Michael Fox/The WorldBut theft there has been a major problem. Santillán said the quantity of the theft is impossible to calculate. But it has happened for decades. And it’s still happening.
In 2015, Argentine police foiled the theft of 3,300 pounds of space rocks from Campo del Cielo.
In another news report from 2019, a group of people was caught trying to steal three large meteorites. This June, two people were detained again in western Argentina, trying to make off with 77 stolen space rocks. Back in 1990, a US meteorite collector even tried to steal El Chaco, then, the second largest meteorite in the world.
Meteorites of varying sizes used to litter the ground.
“They aren’t that easy to find now,” said one Argentine researcher, in a clip from a 2014 documentary about the Campo del Cielo meteorite field. “But there were plantations, where the entire road was lined on both sides with meteorites. Every rock you found here was a meteorite.”
Campo del Cielo Museum is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Michael Fox/The WorldThe Argentine state has tried to respond. Since the 1990s, laws have prohibited the removal and sale of the country’s meteorites. In 2004, Argentina passed a law declaring the meteorites a cultural patrimony of the nation.
Rogelio Daniel Acevedo is a geologist and meteorite specialist, who’s retired from Argentina’s science and research agency, CONICET.
“So, they can’t be sold,” he said. “If I find one on my property, I don’t have to turn it in, but I can’t sell it.”
Nevertheless, he explained, in the markets of the world where precious metals and rocks are sold, there is always an Argentine meteorite for sale.
Be it at a gift shop in the United States or online, a quick search on eBay revealed dozens of listings just for Campo del Cielo meteorites.
View from the Campo del Cielo viewing tower.Michael Fox/The World“It’s really unfortunate,” said guide Santillán. “This question of meteorite theft and contraband is really hard to control.”
She said that even though the sale of Argentina’s meteorites abroad is still illegal under Argentine law, it’s hard to regulate.
Her message: Please don’t buy or sell our meteorites. “This is something that belongs to us,” she said. “Something that’s unique — [a] world heritage.”
But Santillán said these meteorites are just used, sold and commercialized, like everything today.
And that, she said, is a shame.
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When it became clear that Donald Trump would win the US presidential election, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy didn’t hesitate to contact him.
“Zelenskiy, I think, was one of the first leaders who congratulated Trump for his victory,” said Maria Avdeeva, a Ukrainian security expert based in Kharkiv.
She said that Ukraine’s approach to its relationship with the US has been pragmatic: “We need bipartisan support for Ukraine, because with only one party’s support, Ukraine will not be able to win the war.”
In Europe, many countries will be paying close attention to the Trump administration’s approach to the war between Russia and Ukraine. While campaigning, Trump said that he would “end” the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of becoming president.
So far, government officials in both Russia and Ukraine are being cautious in their statements about Trump and his policy toward the war.
While congratulating Trump on his election victory, Zelenskiy underlined something that Trump said during his previous term as president about “peace through strength.”
For Zelenskiy, that means more US military support to help Ukraine keep up the fight against Russia’s invasion.
Avdeeva said that right now, Ukraine is facing a dire situation on the front lines.
“The offensive coming out of Russia is the most severe since the beginning of the invasion, and the only way to change that is to supply Ukraine with more weapons and support that will show Russia the strength,” she explained.
In Ukraine, there continues to be concern about Trump’s policy positions.
Trump has expressed skepticism about US aid to Ukraine, and J.D. Vance, Trump’s vice president-elect, has said, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.”
On the other hand, Avdeeva said, many Ukrainians welcome a shake-up in US policy.
“The fact that Trump was elected, it is not seen as catastrophic, because we already were not seeing all the help that was promised at the beginning of the invasion.”
According to Avdeeva, many Ukrainians have become disillusioned with US support, believing that President Joe Biden’s incremental approach has been too cautious.
There are also some concerns that Trump will try to pressure Ukraine to enter peace talks.
“Any kind of negotiations need two sides, and Russia is not interested in that at the moment,” Avdeeva said, especially as Russia continues to make gains on the battlefield.
One of Russian state media’s top TV hosts, Olga Skabeyeva, mentioned Trump’s claim that he would end the war within 24 hours of becoming president.
“We remember this key election promise, but we certainly don’t believe it,” she said.
Francis Scarr, a journalist with BBC Monitoring, has been tracking the reaction to Trump’s election on Russia state media.
“The thing that struck me most about how they reacted was how cautious they seemed to be,” Scarr said.
When Trump was first elected in 2016, some Russian government officials were seen celebrating — even toasting to Trump’s victory with glasses of champagne.
That is not the case this time around.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that the government will judge Trump on his first steps in office. According to Scarr, that means there’s no point in assuming that relations with the US will somehow improve after his victory.
Peskov said, “Let’s not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country that is directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state.”
Even the most bombastic Russian state TV news host, Vladimir Solovyov, was relatively cautious — echoing the Kremlin’s message.
“We’re America’s enemy,” Solovyov said. “And at the end of the day, no matter who’s president, Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, it’s not going to be good for us.”
Scarr said that the Kremlin was hoping for a chaotic election: “There was actually more hope that there would be some kind of inconclusive result, that would then lead to Trump supporters to reject the result, resulting in some kind of civil unrest, or at the very least, widespread protests in the country, if not some kind of armed insurrection.”
Scarr said that the Kremlin welcomes any event that could distract the US from engaging in world affairs — like the war in Ukraine.
Another tool that Kremlin-controlled media outlets use is contrasting the chaos of the Western elections with the stability of Putin’s system.
“Russia is achieving its objectives in Ukraine, and Putin is successfully running the country, and everything here is going to plan. So, they’re almost using the election as a way of undermining the potential attractiveness of a Western, liberal, democratic system,” Scarr said.
On Thursday, during the opening of the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory. He also said that Trump has expressed “desire to restore relations with Russia, to help end the Ukrainian crisis, in my opinion, this deserves attention at the very least.”
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On Oct. 18, Wafaa Thaher heard a loud explosion outside the apartment where she was staying. She quickly did what many in Gaza have become accustomed to doing — she pointed her camera outside her window and started recording.
A teenager was lying on the ground, in an area near the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. He seemed to have been injured in an earlier Israeli airstrike and was waving his arm for help.
“He seems like a child,” Thaher can be heard saying to her father in the recording. “This is awful. How awful. He’s in pieces. He’s in pieces. Why did they hit him?”
A group of people gathered around to help. Then, suddenly, a second strike hit, killing the boy and at least one other person, according to Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. More than 20 others were also wounded.
The video, which was later authenticated by the Washington Post, appears to show serious violations of humanitarian law, according to experts.
The attack has the characteristics of a tactic known as “double tap.” It’s a military term that’s used to describe when a strike hits a target, and then after a few minutes, another one follows. These usually kill rescue workers, journalists or anyone who rushes to the site to help. They can be two airstrikes or a combination of an airstrike and a drone attack.
Lawyers have said that it can be a violation of international law, and as some have argued in the past, a possible war crime. Experts agree and say that cases will need to be examined individually.
The incident in Jabaliya seems not to be a one-off event. Video footage, witness testimonies and news reports suggest that the Israeli military may have carried out more of these strikes in Gaza and even Lebanon.
Palestinians inspect the damage of a destroyed house following an Israeli airstrike in Jabaliya refugee camp, on the outskirts of Gaza City, Nov. 5, 2023.Mohammed Alaswad/AP/File photoBut the evidence clearly shows that, in Gaza and Lebanon, successive Israeli strikes on or near sites that were previously hit have led to the deaths and injuries of individuals who may not have been the main target, and that the strikes hampered rescue operations.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians. It didn’t comment on specific examples that The World shared with them.
But in response to questions about the allegations of double tap strikes and strikes on civilians, it said that it is “committed to mitigating civilian harm during operational activity. In that spirit, the IDF makes great efforts to estimate and consider potential civilian collateral damage in its strikes.” It added that it is “fully committed to respecting all applicable international legal obligations, including the Law of Armed Conflict.”
Similar casesAirwars, a civilian harm watchdog organization based in the UK, has tracked and documented airstrikes in places like Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine. It is now collecting data on strikes in Gaza and Lebanon.
It uses open source information and eyewitness testimonies as part of its documentation.
A first responder approaches the site of an Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut, in Lebanon, Oct. 10, 2024.Courtesy of the Lebanese Civil Defense“There’s a digital ripple effect that will occur as soon as there is any explosion,” Director Emily Tripp said, “where you start to see information come online. And we try and capture that.”
There is plenty of information on this war, she added. Families post details about lost loved ones online, and Palestinian journalists have been reporting and documenting events at great risk to their own lives.
The challenge, she added, is the amount of information and the frequency of events.
“We have documented more strikes in the last year than we had in any other comparable conflict in over a decade,” Tripp said.
In the first three weeks of the war alone, there were at least four alleged cases of double tap strikes in Gaza, according to testimonies and data collected by Airwars.
Tripp insists this is a small fraction of the data that they have been able to process so far.
“It will be many years before I can give you a comprehensive picture of what we’ve seen,” Tripp explained.
“We’ve seen a few cases of people rescuing others from the rubble, and then a strike happens again, kind of in the same location. And there’s such cruelty in that [they] are people trying to find their loved ones or trying to recover the dead, and the ability to recover the dead with dignity is suddenly hampered by a following wave of strikes.”
Listen to Airwars director Emily Tripp describe the work and goal of documenting strikes in Gaza and Lebanon.
Others have been reporting similar incidents.
In July, moments after first responders arrived at the scene of an Israeli airstrike in the al-Mawasi area in southern Gaza, a second strike hit directly in front of two clearly marked emergency vehicles.
Eyewitnesses captured the moment on video, which later was verified by the New York Times.
The Israel Defense Forces said the strike targeted Hamas officials, and it will investigate the second strike. At least 90 people were killed and 300 wounded in total, the Gaza Health Ministry reported.
In June, a report by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, described an attack resembling a double tap strike, involving a convoy of vehicles evacuating residents from a designated safe route in Gaza on Oct. 13, 2023.
Israeli forces denied targeting the convoy, but an independent investigation by Airwars quoted an ammunition expert who said that the attack was probably carried out with “a precision-guided shrapnel-delivered missile.” He added “if that is the case, then the attack would have been carried out by the Israelis.”
It’s difficult to know the exact extent of the deaths and injuries caused by these attacks. Israel does not allow international journalists to report independently inside Gaza.
An emergency vehicle damaged by an Israeli airstrike in the Burj al-Barajneh municipality of Dahiyeh, a suburb south of Beirut in Lebanon, Oct. 10, 2024.Courtesy of the Lebanese Civil Defense“When we arrive, the airstrikes follow”Three days after Israel’s incursion into Lebanon, Ghassan Zheim, an operation manager with the Lebanese Civil Defense, rushed to the site of an airstrike in the Dahiyeh neighborhood, south of the capital Beirut.
“There was a big fire,” he recalled.
Damage from an Israeli airstrike in the Burj al-Barajneh municipality of Dahiyeh, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Oct. 10, 2024.Courtesy of the Lebanese Civil DefenseAs the rescue workers were busy putting out the fire, another strike hit, killing two of Zheim’s colleagues.
“We picked them out from under the rubble,” he said.
Zheim and another rescue worker, Ayman Taher, described what seems to have become a pattern: Whenever they arrive at a location to start rescue operations, Israeli airstrikes follow.
Taher recalled another recent incident, where a second strike hit about 14 minutes after the first one. The rescuers said they felt targeted.
Taher said they have come up with ways to help minimize risk. They first send someone on a motorbike to monitor the situation. Once it all seems clear, rescue workers arrive with their equipment. They have set up a WhatsApp group chat to communicate, Taher said.
Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, confirmed to The World that Israel has carried out double tap strikes that have killed and injured rescue workers. He said that these attacks have led to a disruption of emergency services.
“There [have] been several instances where we did not allow the first responders to go out,” he explained, “because it was clear that they [would] be targeted. And there [have] also been direct threats by the Israelis on certain health care responders, where they clearly said that they will target them if they are on the road.”
Hezbollah, the Shia militant group in Lebanon, has frequently lobbed rockets into northern Israel since October of last year. The Israeli military has accused the group of using ambulances to transport fighters and hospitals to hide weapons and equipment.
Abiad responded to the accusation saying that the military had not shown strong evidence for its claim.
“If you believe that these ambulances are being used for military reasons you need to show the proof or elicit a warning to be investigated. But you cannot target them just because these ambulances carry the opposite side’s flag.”
Following the airstrike on a house in Sirbine in South Lebanon on Sunday 13th of October at 8am, Lebanese Red Cross ambulance teams were dispatched to the scene in coordination with UNIFIL.
As the team was searching for casualties to rescue, the house was hit for a second time… pic.twitter.com/ufxJL8sGYQ
— Lebanese Red Cross (@RedCrossLebanon) October 13, 2024
Human Rights Watch looked into accusations that weapons and equipment were being stored in three medical facilities.
“Human Rights Watch did not find any evidence indicating use of these three facilities for military purposes at the time of the attacks that would justify depriving them of their protected status under international humanitarian law,” the report said.
“Under international law, rescue workers and medical personnel are afforded protections in order to enable them to do their work,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher for Human Rights Watch.
“When going out and doing your job as a paramedic becomes dangerous, it has a ripple effect on the community,” he added.
Listen to Dr. Firass Abiad, Lebanon’s minister of health, commenting on the seriousness of alleged Israeli strikes on rescue workers in Lebanon.
Warning or possible war crime?The Israeli military has reportedly conducted double tap strikes in the past. A team of independent international medical experts investigated allegations of civilian harm in Israel’s war in Gaza in 2014. They found that “double tap or multiple consecutive strikes on a single location led to multiple civilian casualties and to injuries and deaths among rescuers.”
The Israeli military sometimes describes multiple strikes as warning shots, but in the double tap cases that have been reported, an initial strike led to deaths and injuries and then a second strike hit after people or rescuers gathered.
Experts say giving warnings doesn’t mean the military can do away with its other obligations under international law.
“Civilians have no obligation to flee their homes and they retain all their legal protections if they choose to stay,” said Adil Haque, professor of law at Rutgers University.
“An attacking force always has a legal obligation to verify that its targets are lawful and to avoid unnecessary or disproportionate harm to civilians,” Haque added. “It must give warnings prior to attacks whenever possible, but it still has to look and see whether civilians have heeded a warning or remain in harm’s way. It cannot assume that all or most civilians have left.”
Haque, whose research focuses on the international law of armed conflict, explained that double tap strikes are “always extremely alarming and very hard to justify.”
Listen to Adil Haque’s reaction to the video of what appears to be a double tap strike near the Jabaliya Refugee camp on Oct. 18.
Haque also raised concerns about Iran and Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel. He said that Iran’s missile strikes “violated the UN Charter, which permits the use of force in self-defense but prohibits retaliation or reprisal.”
He added that “many of Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on Israel violate international humanitarian law because they are directed at civilian areas or are so inaccurate as to be indiscriminate. At the same time, many of Hezbollah’s attacks appear directed at military targets.”
“We allowed this to happen”Double tap attacks have been used in past wars. The CIA has been accused of using them and so have groups like Hamas and the Taliban.
“We saw this also of course with Irish terror tactics against the United Kingdom and that’s where the phrase double tap initially originated … [this idea] that you could do this follow-up strike in order to target the ambulance men, the medics, the disaster relief people, those who are actually trying to save lives,” said Keir Giles, with Chatham House, a think tank based in the UK.
“It’s a tactic that you see wherever Russia goes to war, not just Russia of course, but Russia makes it a central part of its strategy because the way Russia wins wars is to terrorize the civilian population into submission,” he said.
Double tap strikes were a regular occurrence during the war in Syria. After the uprisings of 2011, Russia and Iran rushed to the assistance of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Russian jets pounded opposition areas, sometimes using this tactic.
First responders at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Lebanon, Oct. 10, 2024.Courtesy of the Lebanese Civil DefenseDr. Houssam al-Nahhas remembers that time vividly. He worked at a hospital in Aleppo between 2012 and 2014.
“It was very unusual to not experience an airstrike in more than a week,” he said, adding that sometimes double tap attacks happened on a daily basis.
“We became nervous in terms of rushing to help patients,” he recalled, “knowing that we need to secure our [own] safety, which means that patients and injured individuals would lose those golden minutes to save their lives.”
Today, al-Nahhas works as a health and human rights researcher at Physicians for Human Rights, and he helped put together a report as part of a complaint against Russia submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee last May.
Russia allegedly went on to use these types of strikes in Ukraine, which worries al-Nahhas.
“We allowed this to happen in Syria a decade ago,” he said, “and we started seeing them in Ukraine afterward, and now in Gaza, and then in Lebanon.”
It is not clear whether the Israeli military intentionally and systematically uses two or more strikes on or near an original target.
But it’s easier for potential violations to occur in an environment where emotions are high and accountability is seemingly not enforced to the full extent.
Michael Ofer Ziv served in the Israeli military, and for about three months, he was involved in the process of approving airstrikes in Gaza. He never entered the Gaza Strip, he said, but guided his brigade from just over the border.
Ofer Ziv said he doesn’t recall approving any double tap strikes. He said that hits on major targets like hospitals, schools and mosques were approved by higher-ups within the military.
But he said that since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 last year, which killed some 1,200 people and led to the capture of some 250 hostages, there has been “a sense of revenge” and “teaching Palestinians a lesson” among soldiers in the Israeli military.
Accountability, he added, seemed not to be a priority.
“When a commander makes the decision to punish [an Israeli soldier],” he said, “he [essentially] makes the decision to defend a Palestinian. And after [Oct.] 7, that’s not a very cool position to be in. You know, you don’t want to be that wuss that cares about the Palestinians after [Oct.] 7.”
Listen to Michael Ofer Ziv’s view on accountability in the Israeli military.
Ofer Ziv has refused to serve in the army since April.
Last month, he and some 140 other soldiers signed a letter addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declaring that they will not serve unless the government reaches a deal to free the Israeli hostages.
“We were 40 [in] April, we [were] 140 in September,” he said of the signatories. “Now, after [the letter] was published, we have people reaching out to us asking to sign as well. So, we are growing in numbers.”
Smoke rises from a building damaged by an Israeli airstrike in the Burj al-Barajneh municipality of Dahiyeh, Lebanon, Oct. 10, 2024.Courtesy of the Lebanese Civil Defense“You have to pick and choose”When an army carries out multiple strikes on a target, it is potentially violating international law in several different ways, said Yousuf Syed Khan, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council.
“These attacks can violate the obligation to collect and care for the wounded and sick,” he explained, “and to respect rescuers and humanitarian relief personnel. The presence of humanitarian aid workers carrying out their humanitarian function during a double tap airstrike can also violate obligations to respect and protect civilian humanitarian relief personnel, as well as to respect and protect objects used for humanitarian relief, such as humanitarian aid convoys.”
Khan, who served at the UN for a decade investigating war crimes, added that the reports coming out of Lebanon and Gaza are worth exploring. But he also acknowledged that there is a long list of allegations of Israeli violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza and Lebanon.
“The number of allegations are so many that you almost have to pick and choose which one is being reported on,” Khan said. “You do have attacks against hospitals, you have the deliberate and arbitrary denial of humanitarian aid, you have starvation as a method of warfare, the International Criminal Court is saying this may amount to extermination of the Palestinian civilian population, you have allegations of a genocide before the International Court of Justice. So, it’s very sobering to say that sometimes double tap attacks are drowned out by other conduct that also reaches the threshold of war crimes.”
The World shared a list of alleged Israeli double tap strikes in Lebanon and Gaza with the US State Department, and asked if there are concerns at the department about the possibility of American weapons being used in violation of international law.
“We continue to make clear at the highest levels that Israel must not only comply with IHL [International Humanitarian Law] but must also take every feasible step to prevent civilian harm — this is a moral and strategic imperative,” a spokesperson wrote in response.
The spokesperson added “we consistently urged, and will continue to urge, Israel to investigate credible allegations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) violations whenever they arise.”
Editor’s note: The World reached out to several Israeli law and military experts for comment for this story. Many of them were either unavailable or didn’t respond.
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Hagop Djernazian has been standing guard over a parking lot in shifts along with a small group of activists in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.
Members of the group, called “Save the Arq,” have maintained a presence here, day and night, over the past year — to protect the land from demolition, they say.
Like many places in this part of the world, the parking lot is more than just a parking lot.
“This entire area is called the historical Armenian garden,” said Djernazian who grew up in Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter.
“The Armenian presence in Jerusalem dates back to the fourth century and this plot of land that we are standing in is under ownership of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem for more than 700 years.”
Djernazian pointed to the ancient walls of the Old City, the Cathedral of St. James and several residential homes, including the home of the Armenian patriarch — who’s the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Hagop Djernazian is one of the activists from the Armenian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem with a group called Save the Arq. For the last year, they have been holding a sit-in demonstration in a parking lot that is part of an ongoing legal dispute working its way through Israeli courts. Matthew Bell/The WorldArmenian Christians here say their community is currently facing an unprecedented threat. It stems from an ongoing legal dispute over a real estate deal signed three years ago.
But this isn’t just a real estate squabble, they say. Members of the small minority community of Armenians, that have lived in Jerusalem for centuries, are fearful about their future in the holy city.
“If we don’t win this struggle, it will put the Christian presence in Jerusalem in great danger,” Djernazian said.
The Armenian patriarch, Archbishop Nourhan Manougian, signed off on a secret deal to sell part of the parking lot and surrounding areas to a Jewish businessman in 2021.
When the details of that agreement later became public, Djernazian explained that people in the Armenian Quarter were not happy about it.
“The community, (along with) local Christian leaders, international Armenian leaders, organizations and communities, pressured the Patriarchate to cancel the deal. And, we succeeded,” Djernazian said.
Last summer, the patriarch renounced the real estate deal. Manougian said he was misled by his own real estate adviser — an Armenian priest himself who’s since been defrocked and fled to the US.
Manougian said the agreement to sell property in the heart of the Armenian Quarter should be nullified. But the buyers have refused to back down.
One night in early November 2023, a group of Jewish men with guns and dogs showed up in the parking lot to confront local Armenians who had come out to stop a bulldozer used to dig up some of the parking lot and knock down a stone wall.
Since then, the situation has remained in a stalemate of sorts. There’s an ongoing legal battle in Israeli courts, and the Armenian activists have been trying to attract international attention to their fight to prevent the property deal from going through.
Armenian activists built a makeshift barrier out of stones, metal fencing and barbed wire in the fall of 2023 after a bulldozer was sent to the parking lot in the heart of the Armenian Quarter. The activists are trying to overturn a 2021 real estate deal signed by the Archbishop of the Armenian Patriarch, which was later denounced by him and is now being challenged in Israeli courts. Matthew Bell/The WorldKarnig Kerkonian is an American attorney based in Chicago, and part of the legal team representing Jerusalem’s Armenian community in Israeli court. He said that this fight is about a lot more than a real estate deal gone bad.
“This particular property that’s at stake right now is fundamental to the ability of Armenian Christians to live as Armenian Christians in the Old City of Jerusalem,” Kerkonian said.
One part of their argument in court is based on a centuries-old document. It was drawn up during the days when the Ottoman Empire ruled over Jerusalem.
“What we have is a trust that was created in the late 1500s by an Armenian priest, which essentially bequeathed this property to his descendants,” Kerkonian said. “And, if there are no other descendants, then, to the Armenian community. Those are the words that are used in the trust with the church being the trustee.”
Kerkonian said the old document shows definitively that the Manougian, the Armenian patriarch, never had the proper authority to sell property in the Armenian Quarter. Kerkonian pointed out that Ottoman-era documentation has been used successfully in Israeli courts before.
Usually, this involves Jewish Israelis claiming ownership over property inhabited by Palestinians.
Beyond the legal strategy, though, Kerkonian said that this dispute is about maintaining the unique religious diversity in one of the holiest places on Earth.
“This is what Jerusalem stands for. Particularly given the fact that we [Americans], our tax dollars, invest so much money into the region to try to preserve some sort of peaceful coexistence in a region that is, quite frankly, inflamed right now.”
The company that is trying to buy land in the heart of the Armenian Quarter is called Xana Gardens. Kerkonian said that Xana was only founded in 2021, right after the now-disputed real estate deal was signed.
The Armenian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem is home to around 2,000 people, according to some estimates. But a census in 2006 found that fewer than 1,000 Armenians were living in the Armenian Quarter, which is next to the Jewish and Christian Quarters of the Old City.Matthew Bell/The WorldA lawyer for Xana Gardens told The World that his client would not allow him to do an interview for this story.
The company is allegedly connected to far-right Jewish activists who’ve been trying to help Israeli Jews buy properties in the Old City and other parts of East Jerusalem, where most of the city’s Muslims and Christians live.
Arieh King has been active with this kind of effort. He is also the deputy mayor of Jerusaelm.
King told The World that the buyers involved with this transaction in the Armenian Quarter asked him to get involved in the legal case. But King said that he refused to do so.
“I say ‘no’ because I’m not sure about the legitimacy of the deal, and my name is important to me. I prefer not to be involved,” King said.
King added that this dispute should be settled by the courts, not by politicians and not the municipal government. And in any case, as he sees it, the fears expressed by Armenians about being driven out of Jerusalem are overblown.
Armenian Christians living in Israel are safer than those in other parts of the Middle East, King said.
But this is a population that is small and getting smaller. Some estimates put the number of Armenians living in the Old City of Jerusalem at about 2,000. But a census from 2006 found fewer than a thousand Armenians living in the Armenian Quarter.
Jerusalem City Councilmember Laura Wharton told The World that she has been suspicious about this real estate deal, and that she worries it’s all part of the Israeli far-right’s goal to push non-Jews out of Jerusalem.
But she said that she’s also confident that the Armenians will win their court case and will be able to hold on to this highly valued piece of property in the Old City.
“There is an Israeli law about protecting the holy places and it explicitly says that Israel is responsible for protecting the holy sites of all religions and protecting freedom of religion,” Wharton said.
Israeli authorities are also required by law to protect “the dignity and rights of the different peoples and different religions,” Wharton added. “And I think most Israelis are — an overwhelming majority — are supportive of that.”
Back in the parking lot, Armenian activists say they are not going anywhere until their legal battle is settled. That could be many months, or even years, away.
Using some of the rubble created by that bulldozer, they built a barrier across part of the lot, along with a makeshift shelter to sleep in at night, and welcome visitors during the day.
The post Armenian Christians of Jerusalem say their centuries-old community faces an existential threat appeared first on The World from PRX.
Vishwanath Srikantiah, an urban planner in Bengaluru, India’s tech hub, sat on the edge of a 50-year-old water well in a quiet neighborhood near the airport.
When Vishwanath first encountered the well several years ago, he said it was full of garbage. His organization, Biome Environmental Trust, helped clean and restore the well, which is now adorned with artwork. It also has a protective metal cover and a pulley for residents to draw water for washing or bathing.
“Even during the crisis when there was no water in the city, this well always had water,” Vishwanath said, referring to a looming water emergency in Bengaluru earlier this year.
Vishwanath’s organization brings many of these humble wells back to life through the Million Wells for Bengaluru project. Vishwanath estimated that they’ve gotten to around 280,000 of them over the past decade.
A few years ago, this well in Bengaluru, India, was full of garbage. Now, it has a protective metal cover and a pulley for residents to draw water for washing or bathing.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldSmall, shallow wells could hold the key to alleviating Bengaluru’s ongoing water problems. Using age-old, well-digging techniques, they help residents tap into a forgotten water source: the shallow aquifer.
For centuries, Indians depended on open wells. However, with the advent of deep drilling technology, traditional wells fell out of use.
Now, in an era of climate change, Vishwanath said, wells are a simple yet effective choice to make the city more water-secure: “Truly, it’s a low, shallow-hanging fruit.”
Today, Bengaluru gets most of its water from the Cauvery River, about 60 miles away and at a lower elevation than the city. The municipal piped network delivers this water to homes. But newer parts of the ever-expanding city don’t have government water connections yet.
“The infrastructure is barely able to match the city’s growth, and so, where the piped network does not reach, the dependency is completely on groundwater,” Vishwanath said.
In a part of the Indian city of Bengaluru where water shortages occur year-round, residents stock up on water in blue, cylindrical drumsSushmita Pathak/The WorldGroundwater is pumped up from great depths through borewells — narrow shafts that dig as deep as 1,800 feet below the ground to extract water, much farther down than traditional wells. Bengaluru has an indiscriminate number of borewells, and new ones are being drilled constantly.
“When you go deeper into the ground, the water becomes more saline, more unreliable, and the borewells tend to dry out,” Vishwanath said.
That’s precisely what happened earlier this year — many of the city’s borewells ran dry. Traditional, open wells, on the other hand, go less than 100 feet below the ground. This part of the earth is like a sponge, Vishwanath said: “It can hold water and release water, provided we understand the recharge zones and make sure that rainwater percolates.”
Water from a well requires much less energy because it only needs to be drawn up to 20 feet or 30 feet.
A recharge well outside Vishwanath Srikantiah’s home in Bengaluru.Sushmita Pathak/The World“It’s very energy efficient. It’s cheap water. It has less carbon emissions,” Vishwanath said.
The Million Wells initiative harnesses the knowledge of traditional well-diggers called Mannu Vaddars, many of whom lost work when India shifted to mechanically dug borewells.
Sahana Goswami is a senior program manager for urban water and climate resilience at the World Resources Institute India.
“This sort of campaign is very important because you’re widening our scope and saying, ‘Here’s another resource that we can tap into when we need,’” she said.
After all, relying too much on one source of water is at the root of Bengaluru’s water problems.
“You should have a diverse set of sources of water,” Goswami said. “So, if one is diminished, you still have the other one that you can draw from.”
Vishwanath Srikantiah lifts up the metal grate covering a recently revived 100-year-old well near a lake on the outskirts of Bengaluru, a megacity in India.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldIn the face of climate change, she said, solutions like the Million Wells initiative become all the more urgent, especially as summers in Bengaluru are getting hotter and rainfall is becoming more erratic.
At the same time, the city is urbanizing rapidly.
“The way we have developed, we have all these paved surfaces. The natural capacity of water to get absorbed into the ground is also getting diminished,” Goswami said. “We have had more incidences of acute rainfall but short duration, high rainfall, which usually flows away. So, how much water has been absorbed into the ground has been a bit lesser.”
Capturing rainwater is essential to recharge the shallow aquifer, something lakes do naturally. While Bengaluru has many lakes, some are drying up.
In the evening light, the pattern of the metal grate reflects beautifully on the water surface. Soon after the lake beside it was rehabilitated, water filled up in this recently revived well.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldBut Vishwanath pointed to the successful rehabilitation of Sihineeru Kere (“Sweet Water Lake”) on the outskirts of Bengaluru, and a nearby well. The Environmental Foundation of India intervened in 2022, filling it with rainwater and treated wastewater.
Through Vishwanath’s Biome Environmental Trust, a treatment plant next to the lake purifies water from the shallow aquifer, which will soon be supplied directly to locals, and well-diggers cleaned and de-silted the well.
Vishwanath described the collaboration as a success, but he’s eager to see it replicated because climate change “is coming like a tsunami, so we don’t have time to be able to deal with it,” he said. “So, that’s the impatience that I feel as much as the satisfaction.”
Vishwanath Srikantiah stands near Sihineeru Kere (“Sweet Water Lake”) on the outskirts of Bengaluru, a megacity in southern India.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldThe post Why a megacity in India is reviving the humble water well appeared first on The World from PRX.
Tomas Zayas, who lives in the Paraguayan countryside, spoke only the Indigenous Guaraní language until he was 22 years old.
Later, he started to speak Spanish to be better prepared as a community leader. But Guaraní has remained his main language.
“For me, Guaraní is identity,” said Zayas, a longtime campesino leader with the Alto Parana Small Farmers Association. “It’s happiness. It’s beauty. Because a joke in Spanish isn’t funny at all.”
The Guaraní language, along with its many dialects, comes from the Indigenous Guaraní people who have lived in this region since long before the Spanish conquest.
Tomas Zayas, who lives in the Paraguayan countryside, spoke only the Indigenous Guaraní language until he was 22 years old. Michael Fox/The WorldToday, nearly 300,000 Indigenous Guaraní still live in Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina. In some of these countries, their language has influenced Portuguese and Spanish.
But in Paraguay, Guaraní is spoken as an official language alongside Spanish. Most Paraguayans speak Guaraní or a mixture of Spanish and Guaraní as their first language, whether they are of Indigenous descent or not.
Although there are several theories about how Paraguayans have been able to preserve their Indigenous language, one that stands out focuses on the Triple Alliance War of the 1860s.
Guaraní is the main language spoken in the Paraguayan countryside. Michael Fox/The WorldMost of Paraguay’s male population was killed after Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay invaded the country.
“As a question of survival, the women who were left would only speak Guaraní,” Zayas said. “They passed it on to their children.”
Guaraní has long been a language of resistance.
Under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, which lasted from the 1950s until the late 1980s, Guaraní was banned in Paraguay. It has also been stigmatized as a language of the poor.
Rita Álvarez has been selling handicrafts and homemade jewelry on the streets of Asunción for more than 40 years. She said that most of her customers in the city speak a combination of Guaraní with Spanish.Michael Fox/The WorldBut many Paraguayans say that Guaraní is a language of metaphor and beauty.
Rita Álvarez has been selling handicrafts and homemade jewelry on the streets of Asunción, Paraguay’s capital, for more than 40 years.
“For me, it’s the sweetest language,” she said. “Because you can say with one word in Guaraní what you would need 10 to say in Spanish.”
She said that most of her customers in the city speak a combination of Guaraní with Spanish, or jopara, which means “mixture” in Guaraní.
Paraguay is the only country in Latin America that has found a way to preserve and protect the official status of Guaraní alongside Spanish.Michael Fox/The WorldJulio Benegas, a Paraguayan journalist and novelist in his 50s, said that many of those variations are generational.
“Those who are younger speak one phrase in Spanish and the next in Guaraní. They combine the words. ’Hey, how’s it going? Chill, no problem,’” he said, bouncing back and forth between the two languages.
Blanca Estela González is a retired elementary schoolteacher who now teaches Guaraní at IDIPAR Language School in Asunción.
Gonzalez said that foreigners often pick up Guaraní rather quickly, because, unlike Spanish, there are only three types of verb conjugations: past, present and future.
Blanca Estela González is a retired elementary schoolteacher who now teaches Guaraní at IDIPAR Language School in Asunción.Michael Fox/The WorldAnd Gonzalez said the language has received a boost in recent decades.
“Now, it’s an official language,” she said. “And half of the lessons at the public schools are taught in Guaraní.”
She said that there’s still a long way to go. It needs to be embraced and promoted even more. But she is hopeful for the future.
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Denise Flauzino, who’s from Rio de Janeiro, was on a tour of the Itaipu hydroelectric dam in southern Brazil for the second time.
Itaipu, which stretches across the Parana River, is one of the largest hydroelectric plants in the world and provides electricity to 80 million people in Brazil and Paraguay.
“I think it should be among the Seven Wonders of the World,” Flauzino said. “I think it’s wonderful. Really pretty and sensational engineering.”
Denise Flauzino is from Rio de Janeiro and has visited the Itaipu dam twice.Michael Fox/The WorldIn order to build the dam, more than 500 square miles of land had to be flooded, inundating natural wonders and forcing out Indigenous communities. There was resistance at the time, but the dam was pushed through, in part, because it was developed and built during the 1970s and ‘80s — a time when both Brazil and Paraguay were allied politically, with similar military dictatorships.
They jointly constructed the dam. Today, Itaipu continues to involve energy negotiations between the two countries, which share responsibility for its operations. And while that comes with its own challenges, observers say the dam is still a symbol for a unique cross-border collaboration.
The massive Itaipu hydroelectric dam in Southern Brazil.Michael Fox/The WorldLocal foreign relations history professor Micael Alvino da Silva said that when the dam was being built, Brazilian leaders said Itaipu represented a new model of international cooperation based on mutual respect and participation between the two countries.
Da Silva said it’s the only such binational project of this scale in the Americas.
“From the moment you cross onto Itaipu land, you’re not in Paraguay, nor are you in Brazil,” he explained. “It’s a territory governed by a treaty, and run by the Itaipu Binacional company.”
Itaipu has its own security force. Decisions are made by a governing board appointed in equal numbers by Paraguay and Brazil. The two countries have split everything down the middle: the construction, energy production, output and even the control room.
The concrete ceiling inside “the Cathedral” slopes off in a triangle shape to decrease the pressure of the water from the lake on the structure.Michael Fox/The WorldBut this type of joint relationship is not always easy. Over the last year, Brazil and Paraguay held heated discussions over a new operating contract for Itaipu. The tension was over the price of energy produced.
Carlos Henrique Santana, a political scientist at Brazil’s Federal University of Integration, UNILA, in Foz de Iguaçu, explained that Paraguay sells back to Brazil a substantial chunk of its portion of Itaipu energy.
“So, the Paraguayan government wanted to sell back its excess energy to Brazil at a higher rate, in order to use those resources for investments in other areas, while the Brazilians believed the rate should stay lower, according to the previous deal,” he said.
Lazo Cardoso helped build the Itaipu dam and has worked at the complex for 12 years.Michael Fox/The WorldThey finally came to an agreement in May, settling closer to Paraguay’s proposal, locking in a price-per-kilowatt hour just above market rate, almost double the operating cost of the energy itself.
Many, including professor Santana, say it wasn’t a good deal. But it was still a deal. And that is the essence of this binational experiment.
Tour guides take groups of people to visit the Itaipu dam complex.Michael Fox/The WorldLazo Cardoso, who helped build the dam and worked at the complex for 12 years, said the project has paid off.
“Itaipu is like my child,” he said. “I saw it being born and growing up. Now, she is making art, the most beautiful art, which is the generation of energy — clean and renewable energy.”
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President Santiago Peña joined farmers earlier this month in southern Paraguay to kick off the soy season.
“We want Paraguay to continue to develop,” he told followers in an Instagram video from the event. “And our land and the productive sector is one of the great bases of our development.”
Soy is a big business in Paraguay. The country is the sixth-largest producer in the world and the third-largest exporter, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Most of the commodity is sold to Argentina on its way to Asia.
“Soy is the backbone of the Paraguayan economy,” said Lis Garcia, a researcher at the social sciences think tank BASE-IS in Asuncion. “Historically, it represents roughly 40% of exports.”
The soy grown in Paraguay is largely genetically modified and mono-cropped. It needs huge tracts of land to grow. And huge amounts of fertilizers and pesticides. And that’s a problem for the country’s small farmers.Michael Fox/The WorldParaguay jumped on the soy bus in the 1970s. Large producers brought the crop from Brazil. Dictator Alfredo Stroessner pushed it as a major road toward the country’s development.
But all that development has come at a cost. The soy grown in Paraguay is largely genetically modified and mono-cropped. It needs huge tracts of land to grow and huge amounts of fertilizers and pesticides. And that’s a problem for the country’s small farmers.
“Paraguay, today, is a country that is poisoned … in its air and water,” said Tomas Zayas, a longtime leader of the Alto Parana Small Farmers Association, ASAGRAPA. “This is a serious problem that threatens human rights as a result of the use and abuse of chemicals and pesticides for soy production.”
Campesino Ricardo Rojas walked through his fields in the Alto Parana community of El Triunfo with his young son beside him. Rojas has been farming here for decades.
Researcher Lis Garcia said that roughly 40% of Paraguay’s campesinos, or small farmers, have left their land over the last 15 years. Some were forced off by the pesticides. Others were convinced to cash in on the soy bonanza, but fell short.Michael Fox/The WorldHe grows kale, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage. Everything is irrigated from his local well. Rojas’ crops are mostly organic — he doesn’t use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides — except for what blows onto his land from his neighbor, a massive soy plantation.
“We’ve been totally impacted by the pesticides,” Rojas said in a mixture of Spanish and Guarani, the local Indigenous language.
He said that eight days ago, the soy farmers fumigated. The smell was unbearable and it hit the community and their fields.
Campesino Ricardo Rojas walked through his fields in Paraguay’s Alto Parana community of El Triunfo. Rojas has been farming here for decades.Michael Fox/The WorldRojas said that this type of thing has happened again and again.
Eight months ago, he said, the soy farmers sprayed their fields with a chemical to dry the crop ahead of the harvest. He said it blew onto his land and destroyed most of his production, costing him thousands of dollars in damage.
Researcher Lis Garcia explained that cases like this have led roughly 40% of Paraguay’s campesinos, or small farmers, to leave their land over the last 15 years. Some were forced off by the pesticides. Others were convinced to cash in on the soy bonanza, but fell short.
Genaro Acosta González works at the Paraguayan Ministry of Agriculture. He grew up in a small farming community in what is now soy country.
“I want to show you something,” he said, pulling out his phone and flipping to an image. It’s a map of the community where he grew up. Most of it has been taken over by soy plantations, including half of his father’s land.
Genaro Acosta González works at the Paraguayan Ministry of Agriculture. He grew up in a small farming community in what is now soy country.Michael Fox/The World“Soy companies give you loans,” he explained. “They give you seeds. But after three years, people failed. Nothing grew because of the drought. So, when the three years of loans were up, in the fourth year, they lost their land.”
Land is what small farmers are now demanding.
In the capital city of Asuncion, a group of them have been camping out in front of Paraguay’s National Land Institute. A decade ago, the government promised to provide them with roughly 2,000 acres of land that they would share, but it still hasn’t happened.
Trifido Ayala was with a group of small farmers who have been camping out in front of Paraguay’s National Land Institute in In the capital city of Asuncion. They are calling attention to the fact that a decade ago, the government promised to provide them with roughly 2,000 acres of land that they would share, but it still hasn’t happened.“We expect the government to fulfill its promise,” said Trifido Ayala, one of the group’s leaders. “So, we can farm and produce for our families. Without this land, we have no future for our children.”
Ayala said that soy is good for big business — “But not for the poor. Not for us.”
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Alexander Smalls grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina — in Gullah Geechee country off the state’s coast — where inhabitants may be the closest descendants, culturally, to the African continent in the US.
For Smalls, that’s where his lifelong interest in food took hold — “understanding the power of food and the presence, the legacy, the history that food provided us as essentially African people in America.”
Smalls, a James Beard Award-winning chef and restaurateur, helped curate the new cookbook, “The Contemporary African Kitchen,” which will be released on Oct. 15.
The book highlights leading chefs from African countries who share recipes and reflections connected to their home-cooking traditions. Although the book focuses on regions in Africa to showcase different flavor profiles, spices are a heavy influence throughout the continent.
“You’re going to run into things like ginger, Cuban condiment, palm oil, sesame oil, all kinds of chilies and saffron, nutmeg, turmeric,” Smalls said. “These are bright flavors that excite the palate.”
Okra and an array of greens are also commonly used in grilling and stewing.
“Africans love one-pot meals, you know, throwing a whole bunch of goodness in a pot.”
One such recipe in the book strikes a personal chord for Smalls: the shrimp stew, from contributor Agness Colley.
“The whole idea of the smell of it conjures up images of my dad making this dish as a boy in South Carolina,” he said, adding that it was served during the holidays or on special Sundays.
He said he felt as if he, too, could’ve written Colley’s opening paragraph.
“It is wrapped in those memories, generational memories,” he said. “That, essentially, is what African cooking is all about. They told the stories in their lives through their food. And their food became the foundation of their cultural experience.”
Colley’s recipe in the book for shrimp stew is below.
Adapted from “The Contemporary African Kitchen” by Alexander Smalls, with Nina Oduro. This recipe is from contributor Agness Colley.
(Phaidon, US $49.95, 2024)
Photography by: Beatriz da Costa
Page: 222
The smell of this dish marked my childhood, its incredible flavors filling our house as it was being cooked. It brings back many fond memories, especially since it was a meal that was served for festive occasions. Even my parents have stories of eating the dish during the holiday season in Togo when they were growing up. Back then, the dish was vegetarian; now it is common to see this stew made with shrimp (prawns) or other fish and meat.
Shrimp stew
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
INGREDIENTS
• 12 tiger shrimp (prawns)
• juice of 1 lime
• 4 garden eggs (African eggplants/aubergines), halved
• 2 corn cobs, each cut into 4 pieces
• 1 small cassava
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste (purée)
• 1 large white onion, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 green bell pepper, deseeded and chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 4 large tomatoes, chopped
• 1 fresh green chili or jalapeño
• 2 tablespoons palm oil
• salt, to taste
DIRECTIONS
Prepare the shrimp (prawns) by removing and setting aside the heads and shells, then set the shrimp aside in the lime juice. Place the garden eggs (African eggplants/aubergines) and corn pieces in a bowl, cover with water and set aside. Peel the cassava, then cut it into thick slices and place in a bowl of cold water to prevent it from oxidizing.
Combine the tomato paste, onion, garlic, bell pepper, spices and salt in a blender. Add the tomatoes and blend until they form a purée.
Heat a medium, stovetop-safe casserole (or Dutch oven), pour in the palm oil, then add the shrimp carcasses and heads. Stir and gently crush the carcasses and heads for 1–2 minutes, keeping them intact. Pour in 2 cups (16 fl oz/475 ml) of water and stir to loosen the bits at the bottom of the pan. Pour in the purée, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, add the whole green chili, and simmer for 20 minutes.
Remove and discard the carcasses and heads, then add the cassava and corn and cook for 15 minutes on high heat. Add the eggplants and shrimp. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting. Add salt and simmer for 20 minutes while stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened, and the vegetables and shrimp are well coated.
Serve on deep plates. First place the vegetables and cassava on the plate, then arrange 3 shrimp on top, and finish with the sauce.
Excerpted from The Contemporary African Kitchen © 2024 by Alexander Smalls, with Nina Oduro. Photography © 2024 by Beatriz da Costa. Reproduced by permission of Phaidon. All rights reserved.
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Katsiaryna (Katya) Snytsina was a professional basketball player in London when the Belarus Free Theatre recruited her to star in a play about her life.
Snytsina, an Olympian who is originally from Belarus, has not returned to the country after becoming an outspoken critic of the Belarusian government’s imprisonment and murder of protesters after its disputed 2020 presidential election. She is also out as a lesbian, which is stigmatized in the country.
While Snytsina was never officially banned from Belarus, she said she realized that “as soon as they check your passport on the border, they will invite you to the small room and you will just stay there probably forever.”
Snytsina (front center), Raman Shytsko (left) and DJ Blanka Barbara (right) in “KS6: Small Forward,” a Belarus Free Theatre production.Nicolai Khalezin/Belarus Free Theatre“KS6: Small Forward,” referencing her initials, the number on her uniform and her basketball position until she recently retired, opened this week at LaMama in New York City where it runs through October. The show will also be livestreamed for viewers in Belarus.
As Snytsina performs a monologue — accompanied by music by DJ Blanka Barbara — she moves around the stage, dribbling basketballs and speaking in sports metaphors.
Snytsina in “KS6: Small Forward,” a Belarus Free Theatre production.Nicolai Khalezin/Belarus Free TheatreThe play is based on hours of interviews led by Natalia Kaliada, who cofounded the theater company, and her husband and co-artistic director, Nicolai Khalezin. Kaliada said that they sought out Snytsina because they were moved by her story, which touches on what it’s like to be a dissident under a dictatorship.
“Katya is a basketball player,” Kaliada said. “She is not a dancer. She is not a performer. And we want Katya to be Katya.”
For these artists, that is only possible in exile. The Belarus Free Theatre has been banned in Belarus.
Snytsina in “KS6: Small Forward,” a Belarus Free Theatre production.Nicolai Khalezin/Belarus Free TheatreThe company produces kinetic, stylized pieces that shed a light on the repressive regime of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko. From its start almost 20 years ago, the Belarus Free Theatre has had to operate underground.
Kaliada said that when the group did its first show, a production of the English playwright Sarah Kane’s “Psychosis 4:48,” no venue would rent a performance space to them.
“In this particular show, you talk about sexual minorities, about mental issues, about suicide,” she recalled. “They said, ‘We don’t have such issues in Belarus.’”
This, of course, was a lie, she said — Belarus has a high rate of suicide and domestic violence while being “LGBTQI+ [is] completely banned, [and] hate crimes [are] happening.”
Katsiaryna Snytsina (front center), Raman Shytsko (left) and Darya Andreyanova (right) in “KS6: Small Forward,” a Belarus Free Theatre production. Nicolai Khalezin/Belarus Free TheatreKaliada had worked for the American Embassy in Minsk, while Khalezin was an editor who had his newspapers shut down.
The couple came up with various ways to present their work under the radar. They’d pretend they were having a wedding and the guests would be the audience. They also advertised their shows in public restrooms.
In 2011, Kaliada and Khalezin fled the country, but the Belarus Free Theatre continued; the artistic directors met with actors over Skype and put on shows in garages and apartments in Minsk, away from the eyes and ears of the KGB, the former Russian secret police. They also staged shows in other countries.
Natalia Kaliada is the cofounding artistic director of the Belarus Free Theatre.Anna Goltsberg/Belarus Free TheatreBut after the disputed election of Lukashenko in 2020 launched widespread protests across Belarus, other company members fled, first to Ukraine, and then, after the war began there, to Poland and England.
Snytsina, who became familiar to Kaliada and Khalezin after she attended the company’s shows in London, said that she misses her native land and her family. But she said that she doesn’t want Lukashenko to stop her from enjoying her life. And, she feels a responsibility to people back home.
“This is a great way to help my country, because inside of the country, people can’t speak out loud anymore,” she said. “So, it’s become my job — it’s our job to do it, to tell the world our story and keep fighting the way we can.”
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Sunil Singh took a 12-hour train ride from the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh to the neighboring Maharashtra to pray before a 15-foot bejeweled statue called Lalbaugcha Raja in central Mumbai.
“I feel very blessed,” Singh said. “I feel like I have got everything I wanted from the Lord.”
Singh was among the millions who came to observe Ganesh Chaturthi, a 10-day religious festival in India earlier this month, which celebrates Lord Ganesha, also known as Ganpati, the Hindu god of wisdom and luck.
Ganesha, known for having an elephant head and a human body, is revered across India, but especially in coastal Maharashtra and its capital city, Mumbai.
The Ganesh Chaturthi festival honors Lord Ganesha, the Hindu god of wisdom and luck. Ganesha, known for having an elephant head and a human body, is revered across India, but especially in coastal Maharashtra and its capital city, Mumbai.Justin Nisly/The WorldEach year, as part of the festival, people purchase small idols of Ganesha for their homes or pray before larger ones at community centers before releasing the sculptures into bodies of water.
This year, though, many of the idols were technically banned across the state, including Lalbaugcha Raja. Days before the holiday began, the Maharashtra High Court prohibited the use of plaster of paris in Ganesha idols because of the environmental damage caused by releasing the idols into water.
Dr. Shyam Asolekar is an environmental engineering expert who spent years working with local civic leaders and municipal corporations, educating them on the issue. He explained that particulates from plaster of paris spread across the bottom of lakes or are carried across other bodies of water.
“You have no control,” Asolekar said. “You put [the idol] at Place A, it will go to Place B. You think you put it in one place, but you have no idea how long a distance it can travel on its own.”
Days before the holiday began, the Maharashtra High Court prohibited the use of plaster of paris in Ganesha idols because of the environmental damage caused by releasing the idols into water. But idols made out of the substance were still commonplace at the festival earlier this month.Justin Nisly/The WorldThe toxins can be carried by rivers and deposited in the depths of the ocean, harming marine life.
According to Asolekar, there are “hundreds of thousands of idols you’re putting in the water body at various places.” He added that this changes the local ecosystem.
Because of its chemicals, plaster of paris is more harmful to water bodies than natural materials like clay, which disintegrates quickly in water. Asolekar even said that if families released their statues less frequently into the water supply, that could be even better.
Sculptor Santosh Shaharkar, who spends the entire year preparing for Ganesh Chaturthi, stopped using plaster of paris in his statues four years ago, following government guidelines.
Each year, as part of Ganesh Chaturthi, people purchase small idols of Ganesha for their homes or pray before larger ones at community centers before releasing the sculptures into bodies of water. Justin Nisly/The WorldBut many idol makers have not made the switch, which Shaharkar said puts him at a disadvantage. Recently, Shaharkar was among the petitioners before the High Court, calling for the plaster of paris ban.
Although the court ruled in his favor, he said “the ban remains just on paper.” Though the High Court called for the ban to be enforced in Mumbai, it was common to see plaster of paris idols near water bodies during the festival.
Shaharkar said that he hopes that the authorities take stricter action soon.
“I feel that when a strict order is issued, there will be no choice but to use eco-friendly idols. Then, automatically, everyone will be on the side of clay idols.”
Until now, Shaharkar said, it’s been hard to persuade craftspeople and the public to go with eco-friendly idols.
Shaharkar said that he believes that clay idols are more difficult to sculpt than plaster of paris statues, which can be created quickly using a plaster mold.
Sagar Patel (center, blue shirt) and his family purchased a biodegradable clay idol of Ganesha for their celebration this year.Justin Nisly/The WorldAnd often, customers are more focused on price — the idols he makes are biodegradable, but tend to cost more.
“The soul of the art has been lost, and it has been completely commercialized,” he said, adding that he wants to bring back the artistry of the holiday by switching to clay.
Some worshippers, like Sagar Patel, are committed to getting Ganesha statues made of natural materials. Patel purchased an idol made from clay and coconut shells, which he said his family chose because they didn’t want their idol damaged, preferring that it dissolve quickly in the Arabian Sea.
Oftentimes, when the idols wash ashore after the holiday, “you see the condition of the Ganpatis, it’s not good. It’s very bad.”
Others found it tougher to adhere to the court ban on plaster of paris, which remained far more popular for idols this year.
Rachna, who preferred to use her first name given the sensitive subject matter, helped release her family’s Ganesha idol on Juhu Beach. She said her family thought about an eco-friendly statue, but “if you’re doing one thing for a very long time … you can’t convince your family, especially.”
An idol is immersed in the water.Justin Nisly/The WorldIn particular, she said, her family worried that it would be a bad omen to buy a smaller idol than last year’s version. And when it comes to clay, the statues tend to be smaller and heavier — and more prone to cracking.
The larger the size of the idol, the harder it is to make from biodegradable sources.
On the festival’s final day, endless rows of 20-to-30-foot idols were paraded to Girgaon Chowpatty Beach, almost all of them made of plaster of paris.
Slowly, these enormous Ganesha idols were rolled into the water where they were released into the Arabian Sea. People wished for peace, prosperity and even iPhones.
One of the many organizers, who asked to go by Venki, said they will try to use clay next year, but he was still unsure how they would be able to construct the spectacular Ganeshas that people have come to expect.
“Clay is very heavy and unstable, and the jewelry will leave lines across the idol.”
But others say they are ready for the Ganpati holiday to return to its bio-friendly roots.
Richa Ahuja said that historically, Ganpati sculptures were made from sand and clay, “which denotes that we’re all going to be in the sand one day.”
The size of the idol is irrelevant, she added. Even with the smallest idols, “we treat them like it’s an actual Ganpati. The most important part is believing.”
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Some of nature’s curiosities are so spectacular that you can’t miss them. But then there are things you aren’t going to see unless you know what you’re looking for — like ants living in treetops that protect their colonies by blowing themselves up or psychedelic toad milk.
A new book by Atlas Obscura sets out to catalog some of the world’s most remarkable living creatures.Courtesy of Atlas ObscuraA new book by Atlas Obscura sets out to catalog some of the living creatures whose behavior should possibly be up there with the great wonders of the world. It’s called, “Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders.”
Cara Giaimo and Joshua Foer are the authors, and spoke to the World’s Host Carol Hills about the new publication.
Carol Hills: I want to start by diving in and asking you about some of our favorite entries. Cara, tell us about this creature, an adorable, flightless parrot that lives on isolated islands off the coast of New Zealand.Cara Giaimo: Yes, the kakapo is really one of the funkiest and cutest birds probably in the world. They look a little bit like bowling pins. They’re very round. They have these sort of like shiny green and yellow feathers. And like a lot of birds in Oceania, they are very, very endangered, very rare. Something cool about that part of the world is that birds evolved there sort of without a lot of large mammals to eat them. So, they got very strange.
Kakapos are not very good at flying. They’re not very good at hiding. They’re not very good at doing any of the things that you might expect birds to do. That kind of makes them endearing, but it also makes them have trouble surviving in a place where there are now things like stoats, rats, introduced predators that, they see a kakapo and they basically see like a rotisserie chicken just sitting in the middle of the path.Cara Giaimo is one of the authors of “Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders.”Courtesy of Atlas ObscuraSo, they’re endangered. What’s being done to try to protect them?Cara Giaimo: Scientists have done really unusual things in pursuit of allowing these birds to have more offspring and therefore survive. For a little while, they were using something called a sperm-copter to fly kakapo sperm from the sperm emitter to the sperm receiver based on, you know, genetically who the best match would be. They would get a sample in the wild and like drone it over to another bird. There are just like a lot of different ways that they have tried to matchmake these kakapos to enable them to keep existing. And so far, it’s going okay. At the same time, they’re doing predator eradication so that these birds can be safe being their strange little selves.Josh Foer is one of the authors of “Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders.”Courtesy of Atlas ObscuraCarol Hills: Josh, we’re going to travel now to two of the longest rivers in South America: the Amazon and the Orinoco, home of these almost fantastical creatures.Joshua Foer: The pink river dolphin is a species that’s close to my heart. I’ve been very lucky to travel the world, and as part of my career as a nature wildlife journalist, see lots of the most interesting, charismatic creatures that we’ve got. These are some of the most special.
So, the pink river dolphins of South America have probably been in there for about 16 million years when there was an inland sea. And I actually had a really extraordinary encounter with one in Peru. One had been caught up in a fisherman’s net. And I was with somebody when we helped release this dolphin from the net. And, right at about a foot from his eye, looking eye-to-eye with him as we were cutting this net open, and I don’t think I’ve ever looked into an animal’s eye and said “there is something going on here” quite in the way that there was with the pink river dolphin.
They’re incredibly smart. Their brains are humongous. And they’ve got this glowing pink skin, particularly the males, that almost looks like human Caucasian skin, which is part of what’s so unnerving about them.Kara, I want to ask you, what was the thinking behind this book, “Wild Life,” about these living world wonders? What inspired it?Cara Giaimo: Yeah, so the ethos of Atlas Obscura has always been to look around the world and find things that will make you feel like you didn’t actually know everything that was going on after all. In our time of being hyperconnected by the Internet, you can get this sort of jaded feeling like, “I know everything that’s out there.” But Atlas Obscura tries to sort of disrupt that, like showing you that it’s actually impossible to know everything incredible and amazing that’s going on around us. People talk about, “what if aliens came to visit?” To me, looking around, it’s like we have alien life all over this planet, and we don’t always remember to appreciate that or think about it that way.To hear the rest of this conversation, including a discussion about the golden poison frog and the white bellbird that has shattered the record for the loudest call, click on the player above.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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During a trek across the old trading trails in Sichuan, China, National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek recorded some friends singing along.
Salopek walked through the country as part of his journey, retracing the path of human migration on foot, which is being documented in the Out of Eden Walk project.
Hiking through China required drinking and seeing lots of tea, which Salopek told The World’s Host Carolyn Beeler more about.
Carolyn Beeler: One of the things you wrote about when you were in that region was that these trails, for hundreds of years, were traversed by tea porters. You have photos of these workers in your National Geographic dispatches from your journey, and they show these massive bundles of dried tea much taller and broader than the people carrying them. Can you describe the loads they had and where they were going?Paul Salopek: Yeah, so for about 250 years, until the last dynasty finished in China, there was a stream of, imagine these high kinds of eastern outliers of the Himalaya mountains, and they’re a stream of porters going back and forth over a stretch of almost, I don’t know, about 200 km. That would be like 130 miles up mountain passes, down into canyons … all of them staggering in one direction towards Tibet, carrying, kind of, cheap black tea from Sichuan into Tibet. And these porters were amazing athletes, [with] almost superhuman feats of crossing these passes, carrying up to 400 pounds of dried tea on their back, wrapped in bamboo packets. It’s hard to imagine.Wow. That is a staggering load. It sounds like incredibly difficult work. My question is, why were people carrying these loads and not pack animals, especially, as you said, into the 1900s?Well, the mountains there are just so rugged that they defied the construction of roads for generations. This began, I think, back in the 1700s under the Qing. And I actually interviewed one of the last porters. He was an 89-year-old man who carried tea when he was a teenager. But these walking trails, these tea kid porter trails they called beifu,the porters, basically faded away in the early 1950s when the Chinese government began pushing roads into this area.One of four ancient Himalayan stone towers that are still standing at Pengbuxi village, in the Hengduan Mountains of Sichuan Province. The enigmatic structures have baffled historians because their builders left no written records. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkSo, tell me more about what you heard when you spoke to one of those last remaining tea porters. What did he say?Well, it wasn’t easy to find one to begin with, because the last of them walked in the 1950s before being replaced by trucks. But I did, in one village, ask around, and found a guy named Wang Shi Cong, and he was 89. He had carried tea when he was [around] 17 or 18, quite young. And he was this elderly man, his face was kind of a mask of leathery flesh, his eyes glittering in it. And he remembered rheumatic knees, exhaustion, sleeping in bamboo inns along these mountains as he carried his load. And he said, “Paul, there were bandits in these mountains back then. You know, today, you get to walk through China. You don’t have to fear about bandits. But we did.” And he said, “They’d never stole the tea from us. What can you do with 400 pounds of tea in the middle of a wilderness, right? They waited until we got paid, and then they hit us when we had a few coins in our pocket on our way back home.” Hazard of the job.Right. On your journey through Sichuan, you also visited a tea plantation. What did it feel like to walk through that plantation?Tea plantations are always stunningly beautiful. They look like manicured hedgerows. Here’s this Woody Bush — the genus and species is Camellia Sinensis, it’s the classic tea bush. It evolved in this area, southwestern China, which is part of today’s Tibet, maybe a bit of Burma, and northeastern India. This is the epicenter of tea cultivation, going back 3,000 years. And so, it was a real treat.Veteran tea picker Yang Shou Yin prays at Wu De Temple. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkAnd tea is still picked by hand there?Absolutely. It’s considered like premium tea. You know, machine cutting would never make the cut for quality. So, handpicked tea is often the best. These folks were masters at it, as you might imagine. They were quite old. This is not just this tea plantation, but everywhere in China, in rural China, it’s mainly elderly people who are left knowing kinds of farming jobs, including this remote hilltop plantation. People in their 70s, even older in their 80s, use their thumbnail and index finger to pluck off the last tiny tip of the branch, which they call white tea. The palest, youngest little tips of leaves, premium tea.You mentioned this region as the cradle of tea cultivation. Is this where tea drinking got its start?As far as people know, I mean, it’s really hard to pinpoint it. There are all kinds of legends, and everybody wants to be the cradle of tea. But botanists say pretty much wild tea, if you date back the genes through time, probably originated in these hills. Yeah, it was the first sip of tea that happened somewhere around this temple.Pitching tents on the banks of the Yellow River — a rare camping experience on the trek through China. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkAnd was the tea there especially delicious?Oh my God, Carolyn. I mean, if you like tea, it is like being in heaven. Because they have black teas, they have green teas. They have brown teas. They have yellow teas. They have white teas. White tea being kind of the most elite, which is what these people were harvesting. It was quite an essential experience. Yeah.I know there are parts of the world where a cup of tea first is a prerequisite for anything … an interview or conversation coming into someone’s home. Tell the truth, by the end of your time in China, were you ready for maybe a cup of coffee or a break from all the tea?Well, you know, for better or for worse, coffee has invaded China. So, in the big cities and cosmopolitan centers, younger people do not drink as much tea as their elders. They’re drinking Starbucks or the Chinese versions of Starbucks, right? So, tea has some competition now.You say that more young people are drinking more coffee. Is there any fear that tea drinking and tea cultivation, these great traditions in China, will die out eventually?You know, I don’t know the answer to that, but my sense is no, I don’t think, I don’t want to go that far. I mean, it’s so embedded in a sense of comfort, a sense of greeting, a sense of welcome is to have a little glass of tea. It’s ingrained in almost, kind of, daily rituals.Listen to the full interview by clicking on the blue audio player above.
Parts of this interview have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
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Father Michael Gevorgyan, a priest in the Armenian Apostolic Church, was on hand when tens of thousands of people began arriving in Armenia’s Syunik Province from Nagorno-Karabakh a year ago.
On Sept. 19 last year, Azerbaijan launched a military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, which led to the displacement of more than 100,000 Armenians. The disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, however, it’s been historically inhabited by a majority-Armenian population.
Gevorgyan, who serves at the Tatev Monastery, which has been a place of worship for Armenian Christians since the 9th century, said that the plight of the refugees left him speechless.
The Tatev Monastery has been a place of worship for Armenian Christians since the 9th century.Daniel Ofman/The World“We cried. When I tried to speak, I wept. How can you see this and not weep?” Gevorgyan said.
Many of the Karabakh Armenians didn’t even get a chance to pack, and they left everything behind. Although most of them continued their journey north, to the Armenian capital of Yerevan, many stayed in Syunik Province, in southern Armenia — the area closest to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Many of those families are still struggling to adjust to life in their new home.
Raya Makyan settled in the village of Shinuhayr, not far from the monastery in Tatev. Makyan, who lived in Vaghuhas and Haterk in Nagorno-Karabakh for most of her life, said that the war came unexpectedly even though Azerbaijan had laid siege to the region for nine months.
“We didn’t know that the war would start. We were gathering together at the cemetery, to visit our familial gravesites,” she said, adding, “ That’s when we heard the sounds, the shooting and the explosions. Those scary noises.”
Makyan said that, that night, she and other family members slept in their basement. But most of the family left Nagorno-Karabakh about a week later.
Makyan said that she misses all of the natural beauty back at home — the plants and the fruit trees.
“We had many fruit trees on our property: pear trees, apple trees and cherries — we had it all,” she said. “Now, it’s all left behind.”
Makyan said that those fruit trees helped them live through Azerbaijan’s siege, because food was scarce in the months before Azerbaijan’s military operation.
“It was difficult. People in Nagorno-Karabakh were surviving. But it seemed to me that they remained happy. They were hungry, but they were happy. Because they were in their homeland.”
Makyan’s daughter, Lusine Emiryan, who is also in Shinuhayr, said that her husband Abel Mirzoyan stayed in Nagorno-Karabakh as a volunteer soldier and that her sister’s husband also took up arms.
“My sister didn’t know where her husband was. I didn’t know where my husband was. People tried to search for them, but no one found them.”
Tens of thousands of Armenians used this road to Goris, Armenia, during their exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh.Daniel Ofman/The WorldEmiryan said that her sister’s husband was captured by Azerbaijani forces and remains a prisoner of war in Baku as negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia continue.
But her husband is missing in action. She last heard from him a year ago.
“More than anything else, I want to see my husband. Everything else is secondary. Of course, I miss our homeland. But I don’t have my husband, I don’t know where he is, I want to see him more than anything.”
Emiryan said that talking about her husband is difficult for her — she said that she feels as if the pain will never pass.
Gevorgyan, the priest, said that many people displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh come to him looking for advice.
“If the wound is still open, you first need to stop the bleeding — only then, the healing begins.”
Healing from the loss of life, and from the trauma of losing home.
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Four drones buzz around the smoke-filled skies in the KadiwéuIndigenous Territory in western Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands region where record-setting wildfires are raging.
A group of about two dozen local firefighters from the territory’s two brigades practice takeoffs and landings with the drones.
“Our main objective is to prepare [the firefighters] to use these drones to make their work easier and safer,” said trainer Heideger Nacimento, before demonstrating how to hold out a flat palm to create a safe landing zone for the drones.
These firefighters are among those tasked with finding and fighting wildfires across the 2,000-square-mile Kadiwéuterritory, a sparsely populated area with a rough network of dirt roads and cattle paths.
Heideger Nacimento, a trainer from the Environmental Justice Foundation, led firefighters in the Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory in western Brazil’s Pantanal in a training on using drones to fight wildfires.Carolyn Beeler/The WorldIn Brazil, more than 180,000 fire hot spots have been detected this year, and in the Pantanal, it’s been exceptionally hot and dry. Although the region is typically flooded for much of the year, historic droughts have led to major wildfires, destroying large swaths of vegetation and wildlife. Already, more than 60% of the Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory has burned.
One UK-based, nongovernmental organization, the Environmental Justice Foundation, is testing out an innovative strategy to curtail the fires — providing drones and training to Indigenous communities in Brazil.
Nacimento, who is a project assistant with the EJF, said that getting to the fires, let alone fighting them, is a challenge. There are a lot of unknowns.
“The problem is, it’s a huge area in a dense forest, so, it’s really complicated to make strategies for how to combat fires,” Nacimento said.
Heideger Nacimento, from the UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation, said that said that getting to the fires in Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory in western Brazil’s Pantanal, let alone fighting them, is a challenge. There are a lot of unknowns and drones help with visibility.Carolyn Beeler/The WorldDrones, he said, help with visibility — and to ascertain “where the fires are, the direction that the fires are going to and to evaluate roads to get access to the fires.”
The EJF has so far conducted two trainings in Kadiwéuand Terana Indigenous lands and hopes to train and equip a total of 100 Indigenous firefighters in Brazil.
Right now, the standard is for firefighters to use satellite images to find blazes. But those images have limitations.
Ronaldo Constantino, director of operations for firefighters in the Kadiwéuterritory, said through an interpreter that the satellite images indicate hot spots but don’t show how big a fire is.
“Because the satellite will shoot only the heat. So, sometimes, there is heat, but there aren’t any flames. There is no fire.”
The UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation is testing out an innovative strategy to curtail the fires raging across Brazil’s Pantanal — it’s providing drones and training to Indigenous communities in the region.Carolyn Beeler/The WorldFirefighters need to reach the hot spots, or send drones to fly above them, to see if they are full-blown fires. But it can be hard to figure out which road will lead to a fire.
Firefighter Weverton Abicho Xavier,who got trained on the drone earlier in the season, said that the technology makes finding fires faster.
“Before, it used to take a whole day to find the fire, and now, we take about half a day.”
There are drawbacks to the drones: Batteries can be hard to charge in the field and conditions are a challenge.
“The wind in this region is quite strong, and also, sometimes, the forest is so dense that it’s hard to put the drone in the air. That’s something that makes it difficult as well.”
The drones are also fragile — at the training, one broke after a rough landing and will have to be repaired in the state capital six hours away.
But fire researcher Alexandre Pereira said that rethinking firefighting — and especially prevention strategies — is exactly what needs to happen right now.
“Climate change changes everything, so we have to think out of the box and think of new strategies.”
Pereira is a researcher at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul and works for Prevfogo, the federal fire prevention agency. He said that almost all the fires in the Pantanal are started by people.
“The people set fire to renew the pasture, but in these conditions, nowadays, it’s not good to set fire in these conditions.”
Record-setting wildfires are raging in the Pantanal region in Brazil. In a densely vegetated rural area the size of England, it can be hard for firefighters to find and reach the blazes to combat them. Carolyn Beeler/The WorldThe region faces historic drought and recurring heat waves. Pereira said that one major solution to the fires is to convince people to wait for better conditions — less hot and dry — to burn their fields.
Deforestation and degradation of land in the areas surrounding the Pantanal is another big challenge, he said.
Conserving and reforesting land around the headwaters of the rivers that feed into the Pantanal would help restore the hydrological cycle that typically sends seasonal floods into the wetlands.
Reducing the carbon emissions that create hotter and drier conditions fueling wildfires in the Pantanal would also be part of a larger solution.
A group of about two dozen local firefighters from the Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory in western Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands are charged with finding and curtailing the record-setting wildfires raging across the region this year.Carolyn Beeler/The WorldAnd reducing wildfires in the Pantanal would, in turn, help reduce Brazil’s emissions. Land use change, including deforestation and wildfires, have long been Brazil’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
“So, if you stop the wildfires, we get part of the solution [to] climate change,” Pereira said.
Nacimento said that he agrees that a more systematic approach to preventing and combating wildfires is essential. But anything that can help firefighters sweating it out on the front lines — including his drones — are worth it.
“I think it’s a small part but a crucial part of the solution,” he said.
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In Brazil’s Pantanal region, home to the world’s largest tropical wetland, a crew of firefighters layers on extra protective gear in the triple-digit heat before heading into the forest to fight a blaze. They use leaf-blowers to contain sparks and flames and machetes to create a fire-break.
Firefighter Cleuton Santos Cordeiro, speaking through an interpreter, said that the wildfire in the Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory likely started when a farmer nearby burned his fields to clear them.
“All [the] fires I’ve seen here have been started by people. They lose control of it for two reasons — because the wind is strong and the sparks fly, and also because of climate change, everything is drier, and there is no rain,” he said.
It’s been exceptionally hot and dry in the region, which has fueled big blazes much earlier in the year than usual. June broke fire records due to the abnormal weather conditions.
Scientists expect more of the Brazilian Pantanal could burn this year than ever before. About 15% of it already has, according to experts. And the impact on Kadiwéu land is evident. A group of local firefighters is charged with finding and extinguishing the fires.Carolyn Beeler/The WorldThe Pantanal wetlands stretch from Brazil into Paraguay and Bolivia and cover an area larger than England. Much of the region is typically flooded during the wet season, but this year, droughts have led to wildfires, destroying large swaths of vegetation and a diverse array of wildlife. Already, about 62% of the Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory has burned.
Firefighting operations for the over-2,000-square mile Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory are being coordinated from the village of Tomazia, home to about 85 families. There, at his desk, the firefighting Director of Operations Ronaldo Constantino is glued to satellite imagery of the fires.
Constantino said that one of his teams was battling a canopy fire threatening a village across the territory. He sent planes to drop water on the fire, but thick smoke eventually grounded the aircraft.
Firefighting operations for the over-2,000-square mile Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Pantanal are being coordinated from the village of Tomazia. There, at his desk, firefighting Director of Operations Ronaldo Constantino is glued to satellite imagery of the fires.Carolyn Beeler/The WorldThe impact of Brazil’s historic drought on the Kadiwéu land is evident. The landscape usually greens up in the rainy season, from roughly November to April, when much of the Pantanal floods and large parts are accessible only by boat. Now, the leaves on many trees are shriveled and brown, the grasses a burnt orange.
Tomazia resident and firefighter Luciana Correa da Silva said that people don’t go out much at that time of year, because it’s hard to get around.
Tomazia resident and firefighter Luciana Correa da Silva aaid that the typical floods in the Kadiwéu in Brazil’s Pantanal region didn’t come this past rainy season, leaving vegetation that’s usually underwater much of the year available as wildfire fuel. Carolyn Beeler/The WorldBut those floods didn’t come this past rainy season, leaving vegetation that’s usually underwater much of the year available as wildfire fuel.
The Pantanal wetlands stretch from Brazil into Paraguay and Bolivia and cover an area larger than England. Much of the region is typically flooded during the wet season, but this year, droughts have led to wildfires, destroying large swaths of vegetation and a diverse array of wildlife. Already, about 62% of the Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory has burned. Carolyn Beeler/The World“This year, the drought came here earlier and in a very severe way,” she said.
The blazes got bad in June — before local firefighters had even reported for duty for the season.
Scientists expect more of the Brazilian Pantanal could burn this year than ever before. About 15% of it already has, according to experts.
The fires reached the edge of Tomazia village last month.
Village chief Eudes de Souza Abicho, walking past a dried-out coconut tree, showed the charred bark and blackened soil just past a cattle fence at the edge of the village.
“We were scared because some of the houses in the village are still built with palm leaves, and they burn really quickly, and we were scared that the fire could reach these houses. And it took us three days to put this fire down.”
It’s been exceptionally hot and dry here in Brazil’s Pantanal, which fueled big blazes much earlier in the year than usual. June broke fire records due to the weather conditions. About 62% of the Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory in the region has burned. The village’s chief Eudes de Souza Abicho points to the charred bark and blackened soil in the area.Carolyn Beeler/The WorldNo houses burned, and no one was hurt.
But even when the fires are miles away, the thick gray smoke is ever-present, stinging eyes, irritating noses and at times making it hard to breathe.
Community health worker Glaucia Farias said more kids are coming to her clinic during fire season this year with runny noses and nose bleeds, and her patients with respiratory illnesses are having a hard time.
In the Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Pantanal, community health worker Glaucia Farias said more kids are coming to her clinic during fire season this year with runny noses and nose bleeds, and her patients with respiratory illnesses are having a hard time. Carolyn Beeler/The WorldAnother resident, Solange Felix Farias, said her elders in the Terena Indigenous community — which is among those communities, along with the Kadiwéu, considered the original people of the Pantanal — always talked about burning grasslands to renew pastures.
“It was part of the culture. But at that time, we had rain, and the rain would stop the fires from advancing so fast and so much, and now, I think due to climate change, the situation is very different.”
In the long run, scientists expect the Pantanal to see more heat waves, drier conditions, and more wildfires as the climate continues to warm.
“For us, the original people of the Pantanal, it’s a great sadness to see all the plants, all [the] animals [lost in the fires]. This fire comes to destroy everything. And for us, it’s very sad because we depend and rely on our environment to survive.”
The CO2 Foundation provided support for this reporting.
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One year ago this week, Azerbaijan launched a military operation that led to the displacement of more than 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Tens of thousands of them are now scattered throughout Armenia, with the majority settling in Yerevan, the Armenian capital. Many are struggling with housing and job security.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which means “mountainous black garden,” is an enclave within Azerbaijan’s borders, but it’s been inhabited, historically, by a majority-Armenian population.
Since the final days of the Soviet Union, war, displacement and trauma have upended the lives of people from Nagorno-Karabakh. Today, the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is still defining the relationship between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe, said the region has a complex history.
“It’s a region that’s at a crossroads, a region that’s very diverse, a region that’s neither quite Europe, nor quite Asia, nor quite the Middle East — and [in] the region, [these] ethnic groups have quite a long history of cooperation and coexistence, but also conflict, of which the largest conflict by far is between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.”
During the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous region within Azerbaijan made up mainly of ethnic Armenians.
In 1988, many Armenians were emboldened by Soviet reforms and wanted more autonomy. The Karabakh movement led by Armenians sought to unify Nagorno-Karabakh with the rest of Armenia.
Azerbaijanis rejected this idea, and quickly, the political disagreement led to violence.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tried to intervene, but his government failed to ease the tension.
“The Armenians of Karabakh straight out say they want to join Soviet Armenia [and] leave Azerbaijan. Azerbaijanis say, ‘No, this will break up our republic.’ It starts as a political dispute, but Moscow can’t sort it out, and very quickly, it escalates into violence, already in the Soviet period,” de Waal said.
Then, in 1991, with the Soviet Union’s collapse, the conflict became a war between two independent states. It also led to ethnic clashes within each state, with Azerbaijanis killing Armenians, and Armenians killing Azerbaijanis.
“Suddenly, everyone feels mutually insecure, and the neighbor whose shop you went to, whose doctor’s office you went to, whose [kids] played with your kids, suddenly, he might be a threat, and neighbors start fighting,” de Waal said.
On top of that, hundreds of thousands of people on both sides were displaced.
The war went on until 1994, when the fighting concluded with a ceasefire. Nagorno-Karabakh remained within Azerbaijan, but Armenians controlled the territory and the area around it.
For 26 years, it was considered a frozen conflict. In 2020, the second Nagorno-Karabakh war began and lasted for 44 days, tilting the balance of the conflict.
Azerbaijan took control of most of the territory surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, but it still didn’t control the entire region.
Tigran Grigoryan is head of the Regional Center for Democracy and Security, an Armenia-based think tank.
He said that Azerbaijan wasn’t satisfied with the result of the 2020 war, so it started a blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh in December 2022.
“The end goal of that strategy, of that policy, was the complete depopulation of the territory, and the full takeover of the territory.”
It resulted in a shortage of food, fuel, medicine and other necessities.
The Red Cross and other international organizations called on Azerbaijan to allow aid into Nagorno-Karabakh to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.
“After nine months since the start of the blockade, Azerbaijan launched a military operation, and basically forced the whole Armenian population of the region to leave the territory. We’re talking about more than 100,000 people who have been living there all their lives.”
The exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh began a year ago.
But in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, many people have different interpretations of these events.
Rusif Huseynov is the director of the Topchubashov Center, a Baku-based think tank.
“No one in Azerbaijan, except for a few exceptions, ever believed that it would be possible to solve the issue peacefully, or that the Armenians would return the Azerbaijani territories in a peaceful manner.”
For Huseynov, Azerbaijan’s actions are about restoring the country’s territorial integrity.
Now, after decades of conflict, the new status quo is that Azerbaijan controls the entirety of Nagorno-Karabakh. The result is the displacement of tens of thousands of Armenians.
Despite this upheaval, peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan are ongoing. Azerbaijan has said that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh is off the table, something that most Armenians are unwilling to accept.
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There is a proverb in Haitian Creole that says, “Beyond every mountain, there’s another mountain.” In other words, once you overcome one challenge, get ready because there’s going to be another one just beyond it.
That proverb sets the tone for “Mountains,” an independent film by Miami-based director Monica Sorelle, that’s playing now in select theaters across the United States.
Atibon Nazaire stars as Xavier, a middle-aged Haitian demolition worker, in the film, “Mountains.”Courtesy of Music Box FilmsIt’s set in the Little Haiti district in Miami and centers on the character of Xavier, a middle-aged Haitian demolition worker who’s outgrown the home he shares with his wife and their Gen-Z son.
Atibon Nazaire stars as Xavier in “Mountains.” He spoke to The World’s Host Marco Werman about the film and how his own life relates to it.
Marco Werman: What drew you to the story in this particular film?Atibon Nazaire: Its authenticity and necessity to present a Haitian story in beauty. Because, you know, Haiti has been in the news, right, for quite a few years now. And all of the news that you hear is not present. So, it was important for me to partake in this project to present the side of Haiti, or Haitian people that I know — a loving experience that I’m more familiar with than what is presented in the news. And it’s just a beautiful, loving journey that I wouldn’t pass as an actor.And the people in this neighborhood of Little Haiti in Miami are closely tied to the nation of Haiti. Your character, Xavier, lives there. He wants to buy a new house, something more spacious. And the irony is that his own work is demolishing houses in Little Haiti in the name of gentrification. What is, kind of, the arc of how Xavier thinks about that through the movie?Well, you know, Xavier, his vision is like any other immigrant, you know, work hard and live the American dream. And part of the American dream is to own a house, right? So, Xavier, in his quest for owning this house and to raise his family, what have you, finds himself doing this job, this particular job, as a demolition worker. He initially didn’t realize that part of his job was erasing his own community.The film “Mountains” looks at the experience of the Haitian American diaspora.Courtesy of Music Box Films“Mountains” is also very much an immigrant story, and how one generation that arrived is aging while the kids have different expectations of this country. In your story, your character Xavier clashes with his son, Junior. Junior is in his early 20s. He’s smart but has dropped out of college, and he wants to be a comedian and leans into that immigrant experience for his stand-up routine.I’ve got Haitian parents, man. It’s tough. It’s tough having immigrant parents because they tell the truth. They tell the truth. They’re not like American parents. Like when I was young, I used to play organized sports. And American parents, they were so nice to the kids. Didn’t matter how bad they were. They’ll be in a crowd, “Go, Eddie, go! We love you. We support you.” My dad will be in the crowd like, “Junior! You’re no good, man. This is not your thing. You have to go back home. Please.”Chris Renois in the film “Mountains.”Courtesy of Music Box FilmsI mean, that’s a pretty funny bit. What do you hear in this clip of Junior doing comedy in the movie, though?I hear a Haitian guy who has other dreams wants his child to be at the top of whatever he chooses to do from a very young age to an adult. They want us to be on top. They want us to be No. 1 all the time. And in that, you know, they can be very harsh. And it’s from love, it’s from love. It’s not just because they don’t like the child, you know, they just want their children to be successful.I mean, as I said earlier, we’ve known each other for some time, but I don’t know that much about your own story of immigration. I mean, what stands out for you in your own story? Was there a generational divide, like what we see between Xavier and Junior?Absolutely. I can relate to Junior a lot because I wasn’t to be an artist. I was to be a doctor. And to the dismay of my parents, Bohemia took the best of me, the arts to the best of me. And my mother, in particular, when upon seeing my friends successful as doctors, as engineers, as whatever, the choices that they’ve made were safe. As for me, I’m an artist, and it didn’t bode well with them because I’m struggling. But in my heart of hearts, the arts are what move me. Haiti, the beauty of Haiti, is what moves me. And a lot of it is the arts that Haiti gives us. So, my parents and I, we clashed a lot because of the choices that I’ve made.Atibon Nazaire and Sheila Anozier in the film “Mountains.”Courtesy of Music Box FilmsOne last thing about the film. There is this deep connection to Haiti in Little Haiti in Miami that we see through out “Mountains.” There’s a local radio station in Creole that tells the news of the country. When things heat up in Haiti, they say, they also heat up in Little Haiti. How do Haitians and Haitian Americans in the US process what’s happening back home at the same time they’re trying to stay focused on making it here.It’s a challenge because Haiti is the fuel that moves us. It’s that food, it’s that nourishment that gives us life. And watching Haiti, the state that it is in right now, is painful, it’s heartbreaking. I find myself crying often, screaming because the madness is incessant, the madness does not stop. We’ve not had a break for years, just breathing as a human. Because my home — Haiti is my mother — my mother is in pain all the time, or rather, they are causing pain to my mother all the time. So, we are in pain. And collectively, we need some type of therapy, we need a respite.Does your art, your acting, does that help to process some of the pain?Absolutely. Luckily for me, ancestors imparted me with art, with music. As you know, I’m a drummer. So, drumming, and particularly drumming for my ancestors, helps me maintain my sanity.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Related: Who was Toussaint L’Ouverture, the namesake behind Boston’s new Haitian cultural center?
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Russian Elena Chegodaeva left Moscow in early March of 2022 — about a week after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Chegodaeva was against the war and fled to Yerevan, Armenia. At first, finding an apartment here felt impossible, she said: “For one month, it was difficult to find myself here and [I] felt lost. [I] didn’t know what to do.”
Chegodaeva is among the hundreds of thousands of Russians who have left their homeland since the invasion of Ukraine. Most of them oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine, or they fear getting drafted.
Many have wound up all over Europe — and Turkey, Georgia and Armenia have become some of the most-frequent destinations for exiled Russians. According to some estimates, more than 100,000 Russian citizens fled to Armenia alone. This reality has led to some changes within Yerevan, the Armenian capital, as the new residents try to put down roots.
Chegodaeva, an educator, soon realized the need for a school for the Russian children coming to the city. So, after coordinating with families and securing teachers and a space within a couple of weeks, she started the Svobodnaya Shkola, which is Russian for Liberated School. Chegodaeva is the school’s director, and she teaches second-grade math.
At first, the school only had 40 students — all kids of Russian immigrants. Back then, many of the families thought the war would end and they would soon return to Russia. The school operated out of an apartment. Now, 2 1/2 years later, many of the families are still here, and the student body has grown to 250, with classes held in two different buildings.
Lessons are taught in Russian and English, while Armenian is also taught twice a week. The Liberated School serves preschool students through 11th grade. (It doesn’t have 12th grade yet.)
Elena Chegodaeva is the founder of the Liberated School in Yerevan, Armenia. She opened the school in April 2022. Most of the students are the kids of Russian immigrants who left Russia because of the war in Ukraine. Classes are taught in Russian and English, but the school also has Armenian classes twice a week. The school started with 40 students and is now up to 250. Chegodaeva also teaches math to second graders.Daniel Ofman/The World“For children, it was [a] place where they [could] say everything they want, [a] place where teachers [would] respect their opinion, where they [could] find some friends, and maybe, some stability.”
Yura Boguslavskym, a parent of two sons, ages 10 and 15, at Chegodaeva’s school, said that their education is one of the reasons he left Russia.
“We felt at risk. I didn’t want to have such [a] future for my kids because there were many changes in the school system, as well. I didn’t want to stay in a state that is [an] aggressor.”
Boguslavsky said that when he and his family first arrived in Armenia, they also struggled.
“I think [the] first two or three weeks was just [a] shock; we managed to find someplace to live, and all the streets in Yerevan [were] full of lost people with backpacks [who were] very sad, sitting somewhere.”
Back in Russia, Boguslavsky attended anti-war protests, and was opposed to the Kremlin’s politics. Professionally though, Boguslavsky said, he was thriving.
In Moscow, he ran a studio and an animation school. But once he got to Yerevan, he had to start from scratch.
“Our occupation helps a lot. It takes a lot of energy, a lot of thinking. It is also [a] job that connect[s] you with people, and you always meet somebody, and you feel needed.”
A year after arriving in Yerevan, Boguslavsky started a new animation studio called Invisible Friends. He also teaches animation to students of all ages.
He produced a Claymation, stop-motion documentary called, “We flew, we came here,” based on interviews that Armenian students conducted with Russian kids who had recently arrived in Yerevan.
In the film, one child says that he didn’t know how long they were leaving Russia for — but when he found out, he says he “began missing his friends” and sometimes cried at night.
The kids described the toys they took with them and the ones they left behind.
Boguslavsky said that the kids were a lot more expressive than the adults were. That’s why he chose to feature children in the film.
Yura Boguslavsky is an animation filmmaker who left Moscow soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He fled to Yerevan, Armenia, with his two sons, ages 10 and 15. Now, he runs an animation studio and school called Invisible Friends. He mostly does stop-motion animation filmmaking.Daniel Ofman/The World“All the adults [were] very shocked, and they were saying almost the same things, [just] retelling the news. And the kids [were] sometimes even funny; they [talked about] how they understood what [their] parents told them. They were speaking a lot about their feelings.”
Boguslavsky said that this film inspired him to find a way to keep teaching animation in Armenia. He said that nowadays, he feels comfortable in Armenia, but he knows that many other people are having a hard time.
Finding affordable housing, and consistent work, is a challenge for many Russian immigrants who don’t work in the tech sector. A lot of people are also having trouble adjusting because they’re still hoping to return to Russia.
“I know many people who were suffering a lot, and not living their lives, and they were stuck in the past, and I don’t want to be like this, you know.”
Boguslavsky said that it’s unlikely that he’ll return to Russia anytime soon. He said that he’s focused on making a life for himself and his family here in Armenia.
Chegodaeva said that’s her mindset as well, and one of the reasons she founded the school. However, she said she still holds out hope that she’ll one day go back to Russia.
“I miss my past there and the house where I grew up. If I’ll be able to come back one day … maybe it’s just dreams, but maybe, I can do something to help make education better.”
Chegodaeva said that kind of change will take a lot of work and a long time.
But she said that when the political landscape changes, she’ll be ready to go back to Russia in order to work toward that change.
Stepan Adamyan contributed to this report
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As soon as Letsile Tebogo crossed the finish line and won the 200-meter-sprint at the Paris Olympics, people in his home country of Botswana started dancing in the streets.
The celebrations continued, and when Tebogo returned home last week, more than 20,000 people filled the country’s biggest stadium to welcome him back.
Tebogo gave a short speech thanking the crowd and the government for their support.
“To the government for flying my family over to see me do great [things],” he said, “I’m grateful for that also.”
Men’s 200-meter gold medalist, Letsile Tebogo, of Botswana, waves on the podium at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Aug. 9, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France.Bernat Armangue/APWinning a gold medal at the Olympics is a massive accomplishment. And some athletes who reach the top of the podium receive much more than that glittering piece of hardware. However, whether cash prizes belong at the Olympic Games has become a topic of debate.
In Botswana, the money that helped fund Tebogo has now dried up. The president’s office has asked people to donate to a reward fund for the country’s Olympians.
This type of reward is uncommon. What’s more typical is for athletes to either receive no prize money at all — like in the United Kingdom and Sweden — or receive a lot of cash.
Team Hong Kong’s Vivian Kong is getting over $750,000 for her fencing gold medal.
In the Philippines, athletes were greeted in the capital, Manila, last week with parades and a ceremony at the president’s palace. The team’s star gymnast, Carlos Yulo, also received $100,000, free food and haircuts for life, and a new place to call home — a fully-furnished condo unit, complete with a coffee table designed like an Olympic gold medal.
Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Arshad Nadeem brought home the javelin gold and reportedly got nearly $600,000 and two new cars — plus free gas for life. As a finishing touch, his new license plate number is 92.97 — the distance that won him the gold in Paris.
Newly minted Olympic medallists are also likely to receive a bonus from their sponsors or even an entirely new, bigger sponsor.
Arshad Nadeem, of Pakistan, competes during the men’s javelin throw final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Aug. 8, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France.Matthias Schrader/APTrack and fieldThe sports governing body, World Athletics, has also created a new money stream for track and field athletes.
In a first-of-its-kind plan, the group gave every Olympic track and field champion $50,000.
Thea LaFond-Gadson, who won gold in the triple jump for the small island nation of Dominica, is one of the first athletes ever to receive prize money from an international sports governing body.
“I want to say within like 48 hours after I competed, I had the paperwork in hand,” she said. “They were very quick with it.”
Women’s triple jump gold medalist Thea LaFond-Gadson, center, of Dominica, stands with silver medalist Shanieka Ricketts, left, of Jamaica, and bronze medalist Jasmine Moore, right, of the US, on the podium at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Aug. 4, 2024, in Paris, France.Matthias Schrader/APShe said she plans to put the money toward a down payment on a house. She had managed to be a part of two previous Olympics by working full-time as a teacher.
“It was honestly a way to get access to a gym,” she explained, “because I could lift in the building in the morning.”
Pushback from the IOCThe International Olympic Committee (IOC), however, is against these types of payments.
Its members think that sports federations should focus on reducing inequalities between countries instead of handing out prizes to winners.
Thea LaFond-Gadson disagrees and thinks the IOC should hand over a check.
“Making the Olympics is honestly one of the hardest journeys you could possibly go on for your athletic career,” she said. “And so, I think that if they were just to help out a little bit, financially, it would be amazing.”
IOC President Thomas Bach waves the Olympic flag during the 2024 Summer Olympics closing ceremony at the Stade de France, Aug. 11, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France.Natacha Pisarenko/APBut that’s unlikely to happen, according to Mark Conrad, a sports law professor at Fordham University.
“I think it’s theoretically possible if there’s enough pressure on the IOC in future years to do that,” Conrad said. “But I think as more and more countries do pay athletes, in a way, the IOC is going to say that is being taken care of by various countries if they wish to do so.”
The problem is that it’s inconsistent and varies from country to country.
LaFond-Gadson said that she hasn’t received any bonuses or gifts from Dominica since her win. But she said she is looking forward to a warm welcome when she returns to the island later this month.
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India is reeling from the news that a female doctor was raped and murdered inside a Kolkata hospital last week. Doctors across the country have taken to the streets to demand protections for health care workers. Thousands were expected to show up for a march on Wednesday in Kolkata.
Violence against doctors, nurses and medical staff in hospitals is a persisting problem in India. Female healthcare workers are especially vulnerable to these attacks compared to their male colleagues. The World’s host Marco Werman spoke with Dr. Rimy Dey, an attending consultant in emergency medicine at Marengo Asia Hospitals in New Delhi, about the assault.
Marco Werman: Dr. Dey, this incident in Kolkata is gruesome. A doctor evidently goes to take a nap after her shift, is assaulted and found dead. I know the reaction to it has been strong and vocal. What are people feeling and expressing right now?Dr. Rimy Dey: This is really chilling and a bloodcurdling incident that has occurred in the heart of Kolkata, in one of the oldest and one of the best state-run medical colleges in the state, and in the country — R. G. Kar Medical College as we know it. This is not only a crime against one individual, a doctor or a gender-based violence, it is also an attack on the very essence of humanity, is what I feel. Women are not safe in their homes and their workplaces, and this blanket of unsafety pervades everything. Like, you could be a daily wage earner, you could be a doctor who could belong to the cream of society, no one is spared.So, before we get to some of the issues that have been raised by this attack, this murder, what do we know about this doctor who was accosted at her workplace? Who was she? And what do we need to know to better understand this attack?She was a second-year postgraduate trainee in the Department of Respiratory Medicine. On the night of the incident, she was on a 36-hour-long shift. And as we’ve known from sources that towards the end of the shift, she just retired for a couple of hours. And as it is in most of the medical colleges across India, there are no proper duty doctors’ room where a doctor could sleep or retire or get freshened up. So, she had gone to the seminar room of the same hospital to rest for a couple of hours, and in the morning, they discovered her bludgeoned and murdered and violated and raped.As a woman and health care professional in India, how are you feeling today as you process what’s happening? Do you feel safe?It breaks my heart into pieces knowing of such incidents, and that despite such incidences happening over and over again, that there is still a lack of infrastructure, still any proactiveness shown from the concerned authorities regarding this to make the hospitals safe for doctors to work in it. It makes me feel very sad and anguished.Activists of humanitarian organizations, students of different colleges shout slogan as they participate in a protest rally condemning a brutal rape and murder of a 31-year-old post-graduate trainee doctor inside a government hospital, demanding exemplary punishment of the culprits involved in the crime, in Kolkata, India, Aug. 14, 2024.Bikas Das/APWhat is security typically like in public hospitals across India?In government hospitals, the security is pathetic because we are such a big population of people and most of the country’s people do not have access to private hospitals. The footfall in such government hospitals, the number of patients that attend such government hospitals — because these are mostly these government hospitals are in a prime location in the city or the state. So, people from far and wide villages come and flock these hospitals. So, the doctor-patient ratio is also very poor in such hospitals. And, in comparison, the security status is negligible.
For instance, in this case, we see the R. G. Kar Medical College in question is a big hospital which sees a lot of footfall in a day. And there was not one security personnel that was there in that hospital building of around four or five floors, which is appalling, that as a medical college, a mob could break down any time and there would be no security measures.
There was no CCTV installed. There is no 24-hour monitoring or surveillance system in place in a government hospital which sees such a magnitude of patient footfall. This is scary, not only for the doctors, but for everyone in general, even the patients’ security could be compromised in the long run. If you see a patient or an attendant or a nursing staff, anyone’s security could be compromised.So, with the tens of thousands of people expected to march tonight, what are your hopes of what that’s going to do to policy?This protest has now started from Kolkata and spread across the country. Every moment we are getting an update from one state or the other, where the medical students are posting photos and videos of candle marches and protest marches happening in their state and their medical colleges or their hospitals.
And it is giving me hope that the government that is blindfolded against such violence for such a long time, probably they’ll be unblinded and they will get to see how that safety in the workplace, safety for women in the workplace or safety of any professional in their workplace is of paramount importance. And people are also pressing for a central law for the protection of healthcare professionals. They are pressing for safer hospitals.
These are basic, you know, you are working in a hospital saving lives. And how could you be working and saving lives when your life is at risk? So, I’m hopeful that these kinds of protests, the magnitude of it, will and should help the government and the authorities and the lawmakers see that this is the need of the hour, that these things happen so that such incidences do not repeat in the future.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Related: A decade after the deadly assault of Jyoti Singh, has safety for women in India improved?
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A sunflower field is flourishing at a farm 100 miles west of Riga, the Latvian capital, near Kuldiga.
“You can see here, all the flowers are full with honeybees, on the bigger flower on this side, and also the bumble bees are flying here,” said Volker Hoeppner, a farmer and director of BiAGRO, an agriculture company that’s part of an effort to raise money for Ukraine using sunflowers and social media.
For the past few years, Hoeppner has planted fields of Ukraine’s national flower.
Volker Hoeppner, farmer and director of BiAGRO, an agriculture company that’s part of an effort to raise money for Ukraine.Daniel Ofman/The World“People can come make nice photos, they can share these photos in social media, and then they can cut some flowers [and take them] home,” he said.
When visitors come by to enjoy the sunflowers and take pictures, they can also donate to the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital that was severely damaged because of a recent Russian airstrike. Next to the sunflower field is a sign with information and a QR code that Hoeppner says people can scan to make a donation.
Hoeppner’s field is one of 32 locations in Latvia where farmers have volunteered to plant sunflowers and raise money for Ukraine.
Visitors to the 32 participating sunflower farms can use designated QR code stations to make donations to Ukraine. LATRAPS, a farming cooperative, is running the fundraising campaign. Daniel Ofman/The WorldLauma Vētriņa was happy to donate during a recent trip to one of the farms participating in the campaign.
“My older sister wanted to take photos there, so I thought we should donate if we use it for a photoshoot. We took flowers with us, so we donated a little money for this charity,” she said.
Volker Hoeppner moved to Latvia from Germany in 2001. He said that since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, he’s participated in multiple fundraising campaigns for Ukraine.
“I think we must help them,” Hoeppner said. “It’s not far, it’s near, this war, and I think it’s very important to help people.”
According to a recent opinion poll conducted in Latvia, most Latvians agree with him: Most believe the country should maintain or increase its assistance for Ukraine, and about 40% have donated to support Ukraine or Ukrainian refugees.
When visitors enjoy the sunflowers and take pictures, they can donate to the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital.Daniel Ofman/The WorldVētriņa said that when Russia launched its full-scale invasion, there was a lot more activism around Ukraine. But now, she says, things have changed.
“Yeah, if I have the ability to help them, I will, but I don’t have a big wallet to donate a lot of money,” she said. “So now, yeah they help but not that much as the beginning.”
But these fundraising efforts for the children’s hospital, Vētriņa says, feels different and resonates with her more personally.
“Children are the most precious things,” she said. “I have a daughter almost 2 years old. They are like our lives, our future.”
Farmers like Volker Hoeppner hope to keep protecting that future, one sunflower at a time.
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A full-blown war is raging across Myanmar. Fighters are forcing the military junta out of towns and cities at astonishing speed.
They say they’re fighting to liberate Myanmar. But one ethnic minority, the Rohingya Muslims, has reason to doubt that promise. Around 150 Rohingya civilians were killed in Myanmar over the weekend.
An aerial view taken from a helicopter shows Hla Phoe Khaung transit camp, at the Maungdaw, northern Rakhine State, Myanmar, Sept. 20, 2018.Ye Aung Thu/Pool Photo via AP/File photo“This became known when Rohingya started running into Bangladesh, the country next door, with burns and wounds, telling a Doctors Without Borders clinic that they saw hundreds of dead bodies killed by artillery or a crude drone bomb attack, including women and kids,” The World’s Patrick Winn said.
“There are some really unsettling videos going around on social media that look like they were taken in that area recently, a very marshy green area near the coast. They do show many dead bodies, but these things are hard to verify.”
“All are civilian. So, this, I would say, is a barbaric act,” Rohingya activist Dr. Habibullah told The World.
Marco Werman: So, who do we believe the perpetrators of this attack are?Patrick Winn: Yeah, typically it’s the military regime tormenting the Rohingya. They’ve done this for many years. They perpetrated what many, including the US, call a genocide.
But the people who escaped this particular attack say it was done by a group that also, like
the Rohingya, despised the military. That group is called the Arakan Army. It’s a mostly
Buddhist force. The ethnicity of the fighters is called Arakan. They have their own
language and culture, and the Arakan people and the Rohingya are both native to that
area. The Arakan Army has been on a tear, just kicking the military out of that whole
coastal area, taking over cities and setting up their own police and courts.
Recently, the military, out of desperation to get back at them, has reportedly conscripted young Rohingya by force to make trouble to fight the Arakan Army to burn down Buddhist
villages. That has inflaming the animosity. And that’s the context in which these reports of
Rohingya civilians killed en masse are appearing. I do have to say the Arakan Army denies
killing any civilians.If the Arakan Army takes control of this part of Myanmar, what does that mean for the Rohingya population living there?Well, the Rohingya know where they stand with the military. It wants them to not exist. Regime officials have been very clear about that, calling them animals. Soldiers have killed and tortured and raped Rohingya, driven them from their homes. This is all well-documented.
The Arakan Army, on the other hand, and their leaders say Muslims do have a home here, that they can be officials, they can be judges and doctors and police in their new government as long as Muslims pledge allegiance to their new government. I did ask the Rohingya activist Habibullah what he thinks about the Arakan Army, and he pointed out that their leaders don’t even like to say the word Rohingya. They typically just call them local Muslims.
“Since they don’t want to say Rohingya, how can anyone believe that Rohingya
can be safe in their hands? That shows how far behind civilization they are,” Habibullah said.A placard reading “Rohingyas, humans without rights” is displayed during a rally to protest the situation of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar’s Arakan State, in Paris, Sept. 16, 2017.Thibault Camus/AP/File photoSo, the groups that have been fighting against military rule in Myanmar, they’ve been talking about reviving the country’s democracy and ending the kind of ethnic and religious persecution that the military has imposed. But what does this recent episode say about the promise of that revolution?I don’t want to equate the two sides. Myanmar’s military has been oppressing all ethnic minorities since the country was created in the late ’40s. The vision of the revolution waged by dozens of armed groups from all backgrounds across the country
is to say, “Look, we can get along. We don’t need a brutal regime lording over us. We can allow different groups to control this coastal area over here and this mountain region over here, under a decentralized federal system that treats everyone equally.”
So, now that you have revolutionary groups such as the Arakan Army getting into more governing and holding territory and ruling it, it has to live up to those promises.
What I always hear, Marco, from people inside Myanmar is, “The revolution, as bloody as it is, does offer the only hope, the only way out, and that there’s no going back to accepting dominance by the military ever again.”Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.
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Ceasefire negotiations aimed at putting a stop to the Israel-Hamas war have dragged on for months.
At times, US officials have expressed optimism about being close to a deal, but they’ve consistently failed to reach the finish line.
Now, things are different.
The Biden administration is flooding the zone in the Middle East with high-level diplomats ahead of a key meeting on Thursday. Getting a ceasefire in Gaza is the immediate goal. But this is also about bringing down the temperature in a region that’s on edge after the assassination late last month of two top leaders, one from Hezbollah and the other with Hamas.
Israel has been anxiously waiting to see what sort of retaliation Iran and its regional proxies might unleash against the Jewish state. And the US wants to prevent a wider regional war.
“This is the first time that I’m aware that the US has ever put in writing that it was going to put forward a bridging proposal if the parties couldn’t reach an agreement,” said David Makovsky, with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
He said the idea is to bridge the gaps between the different sides and that many of these details would be worked out behind closed doors.
But Makovsky reckons, for example, that US officials are talking about how Israeli hostages would be released in phases. The Israelis also want to know if the US would support them if they see the need to resume military operations in Gaza.
Egypt is concerned about how security along the Gaza-Egypt border will work.
And for its part, Hamas is seeking assurances about Palestinian prisoners who’d be freed from Israeli jails.
“You’re trying to minimize the risk to the parties, basically. That’s what this is all about,” Makovsky said.
There’s concern in Washington about saving the remaining hostages in Gaza, he said.
And another thing adding to the sense of urgency for the Biden administration: “We’re entering into a political season. We’re kind of already in it. The Democratic convention is next week, and then, there’s the general election,” Makovsky said. “And there’s a question of what high-level attention could be given at the height of a political campaign.”
He said the meeting on Thursday could produce a ceasefire deal.
But that would only be a starting point because implementing whatever is decided will be complex, and the risks are high.
“If there is really one word to describe the Biden strategy vis-a-vis Gaza, it’s failure. Failure to achieve a ceasefire. Failure to prevent further escalation in the region,” said Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations and Middle East politics at the London School of Economics.
Gerges said the Biden administration is going for broke, pushing hard for negotiators to reach a deal on Thursday. But he’s skeptical that a breakthrough is possible, primarily because of the position of the Israeli prime minister.
“The Americans know that Benjamin Netanyahu has been playing for time. We need to listen to Benjamin Netanyahu,” Gerges said. “He wants total victory. He does not really want to end the war. He wants just a partial ceasefire.”
“Even Israel’s security officials and defense minister — they have come to believe that Benjamin Netanyahu does not really want the war to end.”
Biden has not used important US leverage to get Israel’s prime minister to accept a ceasefire in Gaza, he added.
An example of this came on Tuesday when the State Department announced $20 billion in weapons sales for Israel.
But this is an unprecedented moment in the Middle East, said Suzanne Maloney. She’s an Iran expert, and the vice president and director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
One turning point came in mid-April when Iran attacked Israel directly. And then, another was one last month, when Israel allegedly killed a top Hamas leader during a visit to the Iranian capital.
“What we’ve seen since the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, attributed to Israel, is that there is a new escalation,” Maloney said. “I think there are genuine concerns that if we see another volley between the two parties, we may not be able to control the outcome.”
She added that it’s hard to say how Iran might retaliate.
In anticipation of what could come next, the Pentagon has already deployed a range of military forces to the region, including a guided missile submarine.
And with ceasefire negotiations happening on Aug. 15 in Doha, Qatar, Maloney said the success in those talks could go a long way to reducing tensions across the Middle East.
“The entire edifice of American diplomacy, over the course of the last 10 months, really does rest upon the need to achieve a ceasefire. The ability to prevent the war from expanding in a more significant way, into Lebanon or elsewhere in the region,” she said. “All of it rests on getting a ceasefire in Gaza.”
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On a recent morning, the week before Venezuela’s latest presidential elections, three journalism students jumped on a public bus with a microphone and a loudspeaker.
“Good morning, this is the BusTV newscast in Caracas. This is a special edition about elections,” said Carla Cadena, one of the students standing in the front.
With a microphone in one hand, and a script in the other, they began a three-minute news roundup. They then explained how to vote and verify the vote at polling stations.
“It is your right to defend your vote,” Cadena said. “It is stated in the law.”
Journalism students Carla Cadena and Ángel Vizcaya deliver the news aboard public buses in Caracas, Venezuela, as part of the BusTV initiative.Tibisay Zea/The WorldThe students are working for BusTV, a local initiative to find creative ways to bypass censorship in Venezuela, and deliver independent news — including from buses, public plazas and balconies.
Since the July 28 vote — that has been widely condemned as fraudulent — the Venezuelan government has ramped up a fear and intimidation campaign. Security forces have been going door-to-door to round up opposition activists as part of a new crackdown called “Operation knock-knock.”
At least 1,300 people have been arrested over the past two weeks charged with “inciting violence.” Most have been protesting the electoral results or voicing support for the opposition.
Inside Venezuela, however, the government agency that oversees telecommunications has blocked the local media from covering any of this news.
Censored contentProgramming these days on any given TV or radio station in Venezuela consists of the Olympic Games, telenovelas or long diatribes of President Nicolás Maduro pointing blame at what he’s called a fascist coup plot backed by the United States.
Meanwhile, the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL), which oversees the media in Venezuela, sent a message to journalists, producers and managers of multiple media outlets across the country, warning them not to cover certain topics.
“It is prohibited to broadcast any content that includes elements classified as violent. Otherwise stations can face a fine or a withdrawal of license,” read a text message that The World was able to verify.
A program manager with the network of radio stations Fe y Alegría, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, explained that the banned content includes “covering opposition protests, arbitrary detentions by security forces, giving space to opposition voices or questioning the election results.”
Luis Antonio Mata and neighbors of Barrio La Cruz in Caracas help put up a paper billboard which features local news headlines.Cristian Hernández/The WorldLast fall, when one of the group’s stations that she manages covered the results of the opposition primaries, CONATEL shut it down permanently.
“This is the level of censorship we are used to here in Venezuela,” she said. CONATEL’s warnings usually come via WhatsApp, an instant messaging app widely used in Venezuela and Latin America. “You will never see an official communication with a letterhead or anything like that,” she explained.
Since the last presidential election, at least four Venezuelan journalists have been charged with terrorism. All of them were documenting the government’s crackdown on protests.
CONATEL’s website has been down for two weeks and was allegedly hacked by the online activist group Anonymous.
Increasing authoritarianismOver the past 25 years, the socialist government of former President Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, has progressively taken control over the media, public and private, according to Marianela Balbi, director of the Venezuelan Press and Society Institute (IPYS).
“Journalists and media owners face threats, physical attacks and legal persecution — and many have had to go into exile,” Balbi added.
About 400 media outlets, including newspapers and radio and TV stations, have been forced to shut down in Venezuela, according to the NGO Espacio Público. Most websites reporting independent news have been blocked, and people cannot access them without a VPN (virtual private network).
The censorship has forced many Venezuelans to get their news on social media. The government has also blocked the leading websites dedicated to fact-checking Venezuela’s news and social media posts.
Luis Antonio Mata reads a news script to his neighbors at the main plaza of Barrio La Cruz, in Caracas. He started working for BusTV as a sound engineer, and then learned from professional journalists how to curate, fact-check and deliver the news.Cristian Hernández/The WorldLast week, Maduro ordered a one-week block on access to the social network X in Venezuela. In a televised speech, he said his opponents are using the social network to create political unrest, and accused Elon Musk of promoting hatred.
Maduro also accused TikTok of promoting a civil war in Venezuela and supporting fascism around the world after the network banned him for a week. In previous days, he also called Venezuelans to delete WhatsApp, alleging it’s been used by “fascists” to promote violence.
Bypassing censorshipBack on the bus in Caracas, student journalist Carla Cadena reminded her listeners the purpose of their initiative.
“This off-line newscast is a way to bypass censorship. Thanks for listening.”
Some passengers clapped and thanked her back.
Passengers on a public bus in Caracas, Venezuela, listen to a news presentation by BusTV.Tibisay Zea/The WorldBusTV, active in eight other cities, is one of several projects in Venezuela that aim to present news independently of state-controlled media.
“The goal is to bring truthful content to communities with little to no access to independent news,” said Laura Elena Castillo, the founder of Bus TV.
According to a recent report by IPYS, at least 20% of Venezuela’s population lives in “information deserts,” or places where local news is not covered.
“Instead of waiting for the audience to reach us, we meet them where they are,” Castillo explained.
More initiativesAnother project run by BusTV is called El Noticiero offline, or The Off-line Newscast. It brings news to public plazas inside poor neighborhoods, focusing on local news.
At the center of the main plaza of La Cruz, an impoverished neighborhood in Caracas, Presenter Luis Antonio Mata started the news round-up. Neighbors brought chairs and gathered around him.
Presenters Marilyn Figueroa and Luis Antonio Mata prepare for a 10-minute news round-up from a balcony in Barrio La Cruz, Caracas.Cristian Hernández/The WorldHe went over local trash collection and a basketball competition happening nearby, and then he got into national news.
“Six news sites have been blocked the week before presidential elections in Venezuela,” he said.
Luis Antonio Mata, a neighbor of La Cruz, is not a professional journalist but is also learning the job. A group of reporters and journalism students curate and fact-check the news and teach him and other neighbors how to do it. Much of the featured news comes from censored websites.
“This activity has created new spaces for people to meet-up, people gather here at sunset, to listen to the show and then share coffee and cookies,” he said.
Marilyn Figueroa, with BusTV, reads the news from a balcony in Barrio La Cruz, Caracas.Cristian Hernández/The WorldAfter several days of intense protests and subsequent arrests, the founder of BusTV, Laura Elena Castillo, said they had to stop working. “We didn’t want to put reporters at risk of being arrested by security forces,” she explained.
But they plan on resuming activities again. “It’s a critically important moment for our country,” she stated. “And Venezuelans need our service more than ever before.”
Journalist Marcos Valverde contributed to this report, producing and reporting from Caracas, Venezuela.
Related: Venezuelans head to the polls on Sunday with many hoping for a change in leadership
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In the dark blue waters of the Mediterranean, about a dozen kids perch on their boards just off the coast of Samandağ, Hatay.
Their coach, Hayder Esmer, stands on the shore with a bullhorn, shouting instructions.
“This is your wave, Huseyin,” he yells. “Push, push!”
As a wave crests above them, the students paddle furiously and push themselves up to a standing position. Balancing on the board, they take the wave as far as they can before slowing down, and jumping back into the sea. The waves aren’t much higher than a couple feet — a good size for beginners.
This seaside community was devastated by earthquakes in Turkey just a year and a half ago. But this summer, a nonprofit has created a unique approach to helping kids process their trauma: teaching them how to surf.
“It’s a great thing,” 15-year-old Samir Köse said. “Sometimes, you miss a wave — you get frustrated — but it’s fun, it’s exciting.”
Many kids in Samandağ, Köse said, grew up afraid of the water. Even though they live right next to it. Mothers often warn their children to stay away, fearing the waves and the riptides. Many can’t swim, and there are occasional cases of drowning.
But disasters have a way of challenging foundational beliefs.
The town of Samandag sits on the southern coast of Turkey’s Hatay province.
On Feb. 6, 2023, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook the entire region. It was followed by a 7.6 magnitude tremor later the same day. At least 53,537 people died in Turkey, according to government figures, and another 5,900 to 9,000 people died in Syria. Nearly half of all deaths recorded in the disaster were in Hatay.
“These kids lost everything — their friends, their schools, their neighborhoods,” said Derya Gümüş Türkoğlu, a schoolteacher from the nearby city of Antakya, who co-founded the Hatay Surf Center.
Many lost their homes — and have spent the past 18 months living in tents and converted shipping containers.
Getting the kids on the water for a surfing lesson is about more than just a sport, Türkoğlu explained.
“To go over the waves, to succeed at something — life is like this,” Turkoglu said. “Yes, we fall, but we know how to get up. It gives the kids the feeling that they’re strong, and it makes them stronger.”
The Hatay Surf Center is the brainchild of professional surfer Deniz Toprak who runs surfing schools in Sri Lanka and Turkey’s northern Black Sea Coast. Two months after the earthquakes, he came to Hatay to volunteer for a nonprofit setting up access to clean water. Being nature lovers, he said, he and other volunteerschecked the surf forecast.
“There was a swell. We woke up in the early morning, and we checked the beach — it was all empty, no one was around. But there were waves,” Toprak said.
Amid so much destruction, nature remained a constant.
“I was just so stoked,” Toprak said. “Like you guys have so many good waves, this is an amazing beach, it’s like Rio! And people were like, what is this guy talking about, come on Deniz.”
Toprak put out a call on social media for local teens to surf with him — and five showed up.
“I said I’m going in at 5 a.m. They were ready at 4:30,” Toprak recalled. “There was so much excitement, and I saw how it changed their whole narrative.”
One of the surfers was 18-year-old Haydar Esmer who had never been on a board before.
“It’s a tremendous thing — I felt like I was flying,” Esmer said.
For the first year, Toprak covered the expenses for Esmer and Akıl Köse to train for three months on the Black Sea. Both of them won local competitions for their age bracket.
“I was very afraid of the sea at first. I didn’t know how to swim,” Köse said. “Now, I can’t get out of the sea. I have to catch a good wave every day.”
Esmer, Köse and Toprak, along with schoolteacher Turkoğlu, are now working together to run the Hatay Surf Center. With a large shedfull of donated surfboards and wetsuits, and volunteers flown in from South Africa, they’re prepared to teach up to 1,000 kids how to surf this summer.
Toprak hopes it’s a chance to create a surfing economy here in Hatay.
“When something is destroyed, you have the opportunity to rebuild.”
Toprak, standing on the beach, talked about a younger student who went into the water with her trainer.
“When she started, she was terrified of the water,” Toprak recalled.
But she was determined to surf. Every day, he said, he asks her if she’s sure she wants to go out again.
Every day, she says yes.
“To manage the trauma, you need a way to reconnect with life,” Toprak said.
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An Israeli airstrike on a school being used as a shelter for civilians killed at least 100 people in Gaza over the weekend. Israeli authorities maintain that the school was a command center for Hamas. But the strike has sparked international outrage. The Palestinian Civil Defense said people were performing dawn prayers at a mosque in the compound at the time of the attack.
The incident has further dimmed prospects of reaching a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
The World’s Host Marco Werman spoke with Tahani Mustafa, senior Palestine analyst with the International Crisis Group in Amman, Jordan, about the situation.
Marco Werman: What do we know at this point?Tahani Mustafa: Well, we know that there were families sheltering at the school. Gaza doesn’t have any shelters. So, really civil infrastructure, those sorts of buildings provide the shelter that people have. At the dawn prayer, there were a couple of strikes, actually, that ended up killing over 100 people, civilians.
Now, Israel says that Hamas had been using those civilians as human shields. It was using the school as a military base. Again, this has been completely unsubstantiated. And even the 15 names that Israel had released to claim that they were militants have been disproven by the head of Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, who knew nine of those people personally. Some of those supposed militants had actually been killed the day before.
And of the nine that the person that I just mentioned now, he knew them personally, and he claimed that they had absolutely no political affiliation to any faction and the one that could have actually had any affiliations, Hamas had a very contentious relationship with the movement itself.Yeah. And Israel defends its right to hit targets like these when there are dozens of militants inside, so they say, they say they’re facing an enemy that uses civilians as human shields. They’re taking all feasible precautions. Do they ever have intelligence that is corroborated by other parties? Like what is your understanding of that?We never have any independent organizations that have ever been able to corroborate any of these claims. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN, they’ve never been able to corroborate, even in previous wars where Israel has targeted civilian infrastructure on the basis that they have been used as military bases or supposed human shields. What’s worse is now Israel is systematically doing this for the last 10 months. And again, they have not allowed for any investigative bodies to even enter Gaza. So really, it’s taking the word of the IDF at face value.Is it widely understood where Hamas command centers are, or does Hamas change its bases so frequently it’s hard to know?We were told that Hamas’ command center was based in the north. We were then told later on that it was actually in the south. We’ve seen Israel have to go in numerous times in places where they’ve claimed to clear out Hamas, where Hamas has been able to reestablish itself. Israel hasn’t been able to even destroy a third of Hamas’s tunnel infrastructure so far. So, it’s very clear that Israel really doesn’t have much serious intelligence on the ground in terms of where Hamas is based.If this was indeed a Hamas command center, does that mean it was a legitimate military target under the laws of war.Under international law, the use of force has to be proportionate to the threat posed, and that clearly has not been the case. That school that they had targeted on Aug. 10 was designated as part of the safe zone that Israel had told those people to evacuate to — and then later targeted.Today, we should note, marks the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, a set of rules designed to protect noncombatants and detainees and limit the horrors of war. Is either side in this war adhering to those conventions?I mean, it’s very abundantly clear that Israel has been systematically targeting everything in Gaza. There has been no safe place, even entities that should be considered protected under international law. If anything, over the last 10 months, we’ve seen it become more and more brutal, targeting more and more civilian infrastructure at this point.And how is Hamas upholding the Geneva Conventions?Hamas is a resistance movement that is fighting an invading force in the Gaza Strip. Now, if we are to work on the basis that Israel claims, which is that they are using their civilian population as human shields, again, there has been no substantial evidence to really corroborate any of those claims.
If we’re talking about Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7, then that’s something else completely. And that is something that Hamas will have to eventually answer for. And it is something that its leadership has said that it will answer for what it is willing to go to international institutions and face whatever procedure it is due.
However, at this point, if we’re talking about what has now unfolded in the last 10 months, then it’s difficult to actually corroborate without any serious independent investigation to really determine whether Hamas has actually been putting its civilians in harm’s way on purpose.I mean, Hamas killed hundreds of civilians in Israel and continues to keep dozens of civilians hostage. We don’t know if some of them are alive or dead. Are you arguing that Hamas is not running afoul of the Geneva Conventions?No, not at all. Absolutely not. I mean, it was absolutely atrocious what happened on Oct. 7. It was clearly indefensible. And no Palestinian has tried to ever defend what happened on Oct. 7. But that does not again justify the response to which 2.3 million people have now had to answer for in the Gaza Strip, as well as the the remaining 3.2 million in the West Bank, who had absolutely nothing to do with the events of Oct. 7, but who have been subject to equal collective punishment. We’ve seen mosques, hospitals, schools, universities, Israel has effectively destroyed every university in Gaza.
You know, we have seen over 190 journalists that have been killed since the start of this onslaught. It’s difficult at this point to really corroborate the Israeli claim that they are trying to do all that they can to avoid civilian casualties.
What we have seen across the region, where Israel has conducted targeted assassinations in places like Beirut, in places like Tehran, where they can actually avoid civilian casualties, and when they do have the capability to conduct precise, targeted assassinations. But in the case of Gaza, they simply haven’t done that.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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Last month, during the NATO summit in Washington, the US announced it would “begin episodic deployments” of long-range missiles in Germany starting in 2026.
Russian President Vladimir Putin responded in a speech he delivered at a naval parade in Saint Petersburg. He said that if the US deploys long-range missiles in Germany, Russia will station similar missiles within striking distance of the West.
Samuel Charap, distinguished chair in Russia and Eurasia policy at the RAND think tank, says arms control treaties were meant to prevent these confrontations.
“The missiles that the US announced future deployment of, together with the German government earlier in July, are precisely the weapons that were banned under the INF treaty,” Charap said.
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or the INF treaty, was signed by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Leader Mikhael Gorbachev in 1987. The signing was a major achievement in arms reduction between the Soviet Union and the United States. Thousands of conventional and nuclear missiles were dismantled and banned. The treaty also signaled a diplomatic breakthrough.
Standing beside Reagan, Gorbachev said the treaty offered a “chance to get on the road leading away from the threat of catastrophe” and a “chance to move together toward a nuclear-free world.”
But decades later, those displays of goodwill and cooperation are long gone.
“There almost is no relationship between the US and Russia,” Charap said. “The climate is one of deep antagonism, so the arms control architecture has been in a period of decline and almost collapsed over the last 20-some years.”
In 2019, the US and Russia withdrew from the INF treaty — accusing each other of noncompliance.
Russian President Vladimir gestures during his annual news conference in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 20, 2018. Speaking at news conference Thursday, Putin pointed at the US intention to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. He said that if the US puts intermediate-range missiles in Europe, Russia will be forced to take countermeasures.Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP/FileA range of other agreements and treaties on arms control have also expired. At this point, only one arms control treaty, “New START,” remains on the books — and it is set to expire in 2026.
Charap said that the Biden administration is open to negotiations with Russia on issues of arms control despite the war in Ukraine.
But so far, Moscow hasn’t shown interest.
“The Russians have said basically, we won’t talk to you, and this is almost quoting Putin here, about strategic stability while you are pursuing our strategic defeat in Ukraine,” he said. “So clearly, Russia has decided that arms control, generally speaking, is not as important as pursuing its war in Ukraine.”
Charap said it’s unlikely that the US and Russia will negotiate a new arms control agreement like New START, but the two sides might decide to comply with the agreement, even after it expires, to maintain the status quo.
In this photo provided by the State Duma, deputies attend a session at the State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 27, 2021. Both houses of parliament voted unanimously Wednesday to extend New START treaty for five years, a fast-track move that comes days before the last remaining U.S.-Russian arms control pact is due to expire.The State Duma, The Federal Assembly of The Russian Federation via AP/FileHowever, there are also other less desirable scenarios.
“The worst-case scenario is that not only does Russia not implement the sort of soft parts of the treaty that is the communications mechanisms and notifications and so on, but it begins to build up above and beyond the central limits of START,” said Charap.
In other words, a new arms race where the US and Russia begin building up their strategic nuclear arsenals without any limits.
Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said this scenario is unlikely for now.
“The good news is that in the short term, probably we won’t see arms racing because the US military-industrial complex is just not up to the task, and also, we know Russia hasn’t indicated that it wants to do any of this and frankly Russia has much more pressing issues.”
Andrey Baklitskiy, senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research
“The good news is that in the short term, probably we won’t see arms racing because the US military-industrial complex is just not up to the task,” Baklitskiy said. “And also, we know Russia hasn’t indicated that it wants to do any of this and frankly Russia has much more pressing issues.”
He also said that despite the dire state of US-Russia relations, there could still be future opportunities for arms control negotiations.
“If you want to look for good news, then you can say, ‘We’ve been through this before,’” he said. “Humans made those agreements, humans then broke them, humans can put them back together. That’s nothing impossible here.”
Baklitskiy says that breakthroughs in the past, like the INF treaty, happened despite open hostilities between Moscow and Washington.
And that can happen again, regardless of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
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Plucking at a stringed instrument called a santur, Nesrin Simsek tells her students to get ready to practice an old, tragic love song called “Malan Barkir.” It tells the story of a Kurdish couple, separated and forced to flee their homes after the 1937 and 1938 Dersim massacres, in which the Turkish military killed at least 13,000 Kurdish civilians and displaced more than 11,000.
“When I play this song, it makes me sad, but we have to show ourselves to people,” she explained. “This is Music City. We want to add a new style.”
Simsek is an instructor with the Kurdish Culture and Music Association, a brand-new group dedicated to teaching Kurdish dance, music and language. The association is located in the Nashville neighborhood of Antioch in Tennessee, in a newly refurbished basement decked out with colorful scarves, photos of famous Kurds, and lots and lots of musical instruments. They just kicked off their first round of classes in June.
Like most of the group’s founding members, Simsek is from the Turkish part of Kurdistan, also known as Bakur.
Kurdistan is not an internationally recognized, sovereign country but rather falls across four countries: Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Kurds have a history of persecution in each of these countries, and their culture and language have often been targets for repression.
Nashville has the largest Kurdish population of any city in the United States, and most are from the Iraqi region of Kurdistan, known as Bashur. They arrived in waves starting in the 1970s, with the largest influx prompted by Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaigns in the late 1980s and early ’90s.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, there’s been an uptick in Kurds coming to the United States from Turkey. Many of them make their way to Nashville, where they know there’s already a large community.
Bager Chelik, who arrived in Nashville two years ago, is one of them.
A former middle school teacher, Chelik now volunteers with the Kurdish Culture and Music Association, teaching a Kurdish dialect called Kurmanji. He couldn’t do that as part of his old job in Turkey because Article 42 of the Turkish Constitution effectively prohibits teaching Kurdish in schools.
“We don’t have a state. And we are under pressure,” he said. “We have to protect our language, music and culture. That’s why I want to teach.”
Local resettlement effortsMehmet Ayaz came to the US from Turkey more than 20 years ago. For the past two, he’s been in Nashville, working with the influx of new Kurdish arrivals as a volunteer with the Salahadeen Center and a program director with the American Muslim Advisory Council.
He said seeing other Bakuri Kurds openly celebrating and embracing their culture is exciting.
“Seeing them discovering America, the freedom of the United States, it makes me happy because that’s why I came here,” he said. “And now you’re discovering it. Now, pass this to someone else, you know, let them know that this is a free country.”
However, Ayaz said these new arrivals need more support than Nashville’s nonprofits are currently able to offer, especially when it comes to learning English, finding jobs and finding housing.
Since the pandemic, most of the Kurds coming from Turkey have come across the US-Mexico border as asylum seekers. As a result, many find themselves in a months or yearslong bureaucratic limbo, waiting for work visas and status updates while their applications process.
Ayaz says this makes all the usual struggles of living in a major city — such as paying rent, finding affordable childcare, and getting healthcare — that much harder.
Crossing the southern borderFrom left to right: Zehra and Mohsum Dag pose with Kadir Gür outside the Kurdish American Community Association.Rose Gilbert/WPLN NewsThat was certainly the case for Mohsum Dag, who crossed the border into Texas with his wife and 1-year-old son in November 2022.
The journey was extremely difficult: They had to swim across a small river and spent several days in a detention center in poor conditions, eating food that made his son physically ill.
It took months to get a work permit, and then it was hard to find childcare so that both he and his wife, Zehra, could work. The first year and a half in Nashville was financially harrowing. It’s only been in the past two or three months that he said he feels like he’s gotten his feet under him in his new home.
Dag spoke in Kurmanji, while his friend Kadir Gür translated into English. Gür works with Tennessee Resettlement Aid and Catholic Charities, and has been working with this latest wave of Kurdish arrivals.
“They would still choose to go to US. No matter how difficult it is, they would choose to go to the US,” he said.
Dag said that in Turkey, he was a member of Kurdish political parties and was very involved as a student and teacher of Kurdish music and dance, which attracted attention from the authorities.
“For the government, whoever supports the Kurdish and Kurdistan, they’re terrorists,” he said.
Police were constantly calling him and coming to his house. He was arrested and beaten several times, and his brother was tortured. And 20 years ago, his father disappeared while in government custody.
Dag and his family never found out what happened to him.
“He doesn’t want what happened to his father and his brother to also happen to him and his family in the future,” Gür translated. “And he doesn’t want his kid to be with no father.”
Now, Dag is a board member of the Kurdish American Community Association, a new community center in South Nashville designed to give new arrivals a place to meet each other and hold cultural events. And his greatest hope for the future is to raise his son in Nashville with a strong connection to his Kurdish heritage and language.
The Kurdish American Community Association held its first concert on June 30. Zehra was among the performers.
This story was originally reported by WPLN, an NPR station.
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The most populous nation on Earth is seeing a building boom. India’s government says the country will be the world’s third-largest construction market by next year, right behind China and the US.
In busy brickyards across northeastern India, workers use naturally occurring clay to make the literal building blocks of 21st-century India.
Credit: Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden Walk. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek learned more about this trade five years ago. He was there as part of his multiyear walking journey along the path of early human migration, the Out of Eden Walk.
Salopek spoke to The World’s host, Marco Werman, about exploring India’s northeast — on foot.
Marco Werman: Today, we ask you to look back to 2020 when you walked across India. You wrote then about a man named Deepak Anand. He was tracing the footsteps of Siddhartha Gautama. We know that individual better as the Buddha. Remind us what the Buddha was doing in northeastern India.Paul Salopek: Well, he was inventing Buddhism, right? Siddartha Gautama was a prince from what is today Nepal. And he rejected all of his wealth, his privilege. When he was growing up, his palace, as a kid, he had 32 nursemaids. So, he was definitely part of that 1%. And he wanted to throw all that aside. He went walking, seeking meaning in life and ended up walking through what is today’s kind of central-eastern India, where he attained enlightenment under a fig tree.So, Buddhism was born in India, but the majority in India today of people are Hindus with a large Muslim minority. How much of India’s population today are Buddhists?A very, very, very small portion. I mean, you can walk through the heartland of where the birthplace of Buddhism is today. It’s in the state of Bihar in India. Paddy fields line the banks of the Brahmaputra near Jogighopa. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkSo, we began this chat with sound from a brickyard. That’s from a video you made of Indian laborers, barefoot women carrying heavy loads of unbaked bricks on their heads. It does not look like pleasant work. How are people compensated in the brickyard?They’re paid by how many bricks they can heft around on their heads. I mean, these days, there are 200,000 brick kilns in all of India. Many of them are worked by hand, and many of the workers are women.Out of Eden Walk shares stories that would otherwise go untold. Here, workers at the ABC brickyard in the northeastern state of Assam fill pit furnaces with unfired bricks. Many incurred crushing debt to secure the work. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkI mean, it’s stunning. This video is just the scale of this one brickyard. I was curious because there’s been a lot made of the rise out of rural poverty for many in India, especially women, and the manufacturing jobs that have helped them progress. But is this progress for them? How do they see this backbreaking work compared to their lives in the fields and preparing crops for market?Well, this is considered a — believe it or not — a step up because agricultural labor, you know, stoop labor, and say, rice paddies, is even harder. Women carrying 40 pounds of bricks on their heads, walking kilometers back and forth from these kilns. They say it’s better. The men have all gone to work in the cities, and the women are left behind to do this kind of manual labor. It’s pretty tough. Your walk also took you along the Brahmaputra River. And about 70 miles upriver from the brickyard, you came upon this really joyous site. So, these kids are sliding down a hill like they’re on a slide at a water park. But this is no water park. What’s going on here?Yeah, this is just classic India, Marco. I mean, going from tragedy into pure joy in a few footsteps. The Brahmaputra is this big kind of blade of water, you know, glacial melt, rainwater pouring from the Himalayas into the Indian Ocean. And all along it, along this stretch, where high berms of dirt, irrigation kind of ditches, the walls of them. And for kilometer after kilometer, local village kids have made their own mudslides, hauling water up to the top to grease the mud so they can shoot down them. They have their own water park. So, walking through this part of India, India is a young country. I think the last statistics I looked at, there are 300 million Indians who are younger than 14 years old. The landscape, when you walk through it, can sound like a gigantic playground. And these kids were making their own fun. Slide after slide after slide into the river.Credit: Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden Walk. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.So, several hundred miles east, the scenes change. You were in the tropical foothills of the Himalayas, and you came upon a village where the local industry is all about bamboo. Tell us about the village of Baga Dima.Baga Dima, what can I say, is like a village of just a few dozen huts up in the mountains, a tropical rainforest. And they were growing lychees and jackfruit. Except I also saw them chopping bamboo and cutting it with band saws in front of their houses and sometimes, hand saws. And I said, “What are you guys doing?” They were making straws, for beverages for city folk. As you remember, back then, there was this big campaign to ban plastic straws globally. And so, Indian entrepreneurs had come up to the hills where bamboo grows naturally. They knew bamboo as a grass. And it’s hollow, right? You can poke a hole through it. And it serves as a sustainable organic straw that, if you wash it, it can be reused 100 times. So, these villages, like Baga Dima, had a bamboo straw boom. When I was walking through, everybody was chopping down bamboo and making straws for city folk, earning about 1 1/2 cents per straw.Robin Naiding, headman in the village of Baga Dima, in the state of Assam, holds his handiwork — biodegradable, bamboo drinking straws. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkYeah. So, when I go to my local espresso shop, and they put one of those alternative straws, is Baga Dima the main source of these alternative environmentally friendly straws, or at least as part of India?It’s part of the system, like Baga Dima. They were getting orders of like 1,000 to 10,000 straws. And you know, when you consider half a billion plastic straws made in the US alone … it’s just a tiny, tiny dent, but they’re doing their part for the planet.One last milestone. You wrote, “Few outsiders travel the hills of India’s northeastern frontier. The region is too remote. Its beauty is without labels.” So, it was here, in what looks like paradise, that you found the village of Azuram. It had declared itself an ecological zone. What does that look like? And what did it take for the village to make this declaration?It’s way up in the foothills of the Himalayas, kind of near Burma. So, they’d set aside half their lands. Imagine a little village, I think about 45 houses, taking this kind of forward-looking decision. It’s a radical decision when your belly depends on the land. Agriculture … to kind of set it aside as a communal preserve. And they were noting that the forest elephants were gone, but deer and other animals were still there. And they were proud to tell me that the tiger was starting to come back as well. They told me this after I’d walked into the village at night through the rainforest. Thank heavens, because I’m not sure I would have walked in there at night knowing tigers are prowling around. But is it going to work? I don’t know. I mean, it’s so remote, and I would find it kind of hard to think that foreign birdwatchers would be arriving at Azuram anytime soon. But the sheer will and the forward-thinking is almost heartbreakingly encouraging. As tough as the obstacles are to make it viable. Amazing people.Editor’s note: This story has been updated to remove references to stupas, which were misidentified as Buddhist temples. A stupa is better defined as a sepulchral monument — a place of burial or a receptacle for religious objects.
Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.
Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonders of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
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Taylor Swift was set to perform a series of shows in Vienna, Austria, late this week and into the weekend. But authorities canceled the shows after learning of an alleged ISIS plot to attack the music venues when crowds gathered at this stop on the much-hyped Eras Tour.
The head of Austria’s intelligence and security agency said one of the two suspects planned to carry out an attack with explosives. After getting news that all three Taylor Swift shows this weekend are canceled, fans gathered to console each other.
“Obviously, this is amazing. This is really heartwarming and lovely. So, we’re trying to look at the bright side,” Jamie O’Connor, who is from the UK, told Reuters, adding that she’s happy everybody is safe.
A person wears a hat as Taylor Swift fans gather in the city center in Vienna, Austria, Aug.8, 2024.Heinz-Peter Bader/APThe World’s Host Marco Werman spoke with Colin P. Clarke, the director of research at the Soufan Group, who joined from Pittsburgh, to learn the details of the alleged plot.
Marco Werman: Talk a little about music shows as targets of terror attacks.Colin P. Clarke: It’s another troubling plot. This is actually the third plot that’s been disrupted in Vienna alone. Just in the last year or so, there was a plot that was supposed to target the Vienna Pride parade that was disrupted. And then there was a plot on New Year’s Eve where a bunch of individuals linked to ISIS had planned to target the Vienna Cathedral. And so, a big uptick in plots across Europe. Many have been focused on the Paris Olympics. But there are other plots that have been disrupted, many of them involving teenagers.Yeah, the authorities say the two teenage suspects had links to ISIS. What do you make of that?Well, what we’re seeing now is individuals, part of different diaspora communities living in the West, especially in Europe. ISIS is really expert in tapping into these through various forms of propaganda. That has a radicalizing effect on individuals. They then reach out to them. We call these individuals “virtual plotters” or “virtual planners;” some call them entrepreneurs. They reach out to radicalized individuals in the West and then attempt to direct a plot. And it seems like this particular plot was fairly well-advanced and quite serious, given some of the allegations that chemicals were involved.ISIS has been around for years. What is your sense of the group’s current capabilities to carry out an attack like the one described in this alleged plot in Vienna?Well, one need only to look at what’s happened in 2024 already. ISIS-K (ISIS – Khorasan Province) has been linked to multiple transnational plots. Early in the year in Kerman, Iran, there was a double suicide bombing at a memorial for former Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani that killed over 100 people. You had another incident in Istanbul, an attack on a Roman Catholic Church linked to the ISIS-K. And then, obviously, the Moscow attack in March, which was a big one. So, you see the capabilities, you see the intent. And I think this is a group that’s going to continue trying until they’re able to sneak one through. ISIS-K is now operating in Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of Central Asia. But this is a group that is now probably the most operationally capable, the most dangerous out of all the ISIS affiliates, franchise groups and branches globally.When it comes to concerts, we’ve seen attacks in the past carried out in the UK, France, Russia — you mentioned the Crocus City Hall outside Moscow just this year — all aimed at concert venues. I mean, you’re the father of a “Swiftie,” I gather. So, I’m guessing this is something you’re attuned to. Remind us why concerts seem to be common targets in these sorts of plots.Yeah, you’re right. I’m the father of two Swifties. This was probably the closest that my work life, at home life ever came to overlapping. So, a bit disconcerting in that respect. But these are soft targets traditionally, right? And so, when we think of military bases, government installations, various institutions, those are kind of what we would consider hard targets, right? Those are places that law enforcement and intelligence agencies kind of expect to be attacked. And they’re guarded appropriately, they’re resourced appropriately. That’s not the same for concerts, for carnivals, for all of these kind of things that we do for entertainment and enjoyment. Now, of course, they have security, but unless there’s a direct and specific plot, the concert is kind of left to figure this out on their own.How are security procedures at public events, like concerts, changing to prevent terrorist attacks?Well, I think the first is preventative. And I see some people criticizing Taylor Swift or the concert venue for canceling the concert. My reading of this plot was it was mature enough that that was absolutely the right call. Go back to the Manchester Arena bombing with Ariana Grande back in 2017. You could have easily had some kind of an incident similar to that, if not worse. So, canceling it was absolutely the right thing. It depends on the concert venue and the country that we’re talking about. I went to a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert a couple of years ago in Barcelona, and I can tell you it was very clear that Spanish police, Spanish special forces even, based on the weapons I was seeing, were out in force to serve as a deterrent. And so, I think there’s the deterrent aspect. And then there’s the part of securing the venue itself, which, even for the most capable services in the world, there’s going to be things that fall through the cracks. There’s going to be, kind of, miscommunication, and that’s what we have to focus on shoring up.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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Katsumi Kusumoto has become a celebrity chef in Japan for his awareness of the environmental pressures on food systems and his adaptation of menus to be less reliant on mass-produced animal protein.
Thinking outside the bento box got Chef Kusumoto to partner with a high-tech food company in Israel called Forsea.
“The Japanese consumed 160,000 metric tons of eel in 2000. Today, they consume only 30,000, and that’s because it’s just not available,” said Roee Nir, co-founder and CEO of Forsea.
Nir says most eel varieties are in short supply as endangered and protected species. Eels are also expensive because they are raised for several years before harvesting.
Earlier this year, The World staff visited Israel and saw what Forsea was working on.
Roee Nir, CEO and co-founder of Forsea, sits down with The World’s Marco Werman to discuss the company.Alon Farago/The World“What we do is grow mini-tissues called organoids, and we basically mimic the natural development of cells,” Nir said. “Our tissue is a natural composition of fat, muscle and the actual extracellular matrix.”
The “extracellular matrix” is animal flesh, but developed in a stainless steel bioreactor.
“We’re not an eel company. We’re a cultivated meat company focused on fish and seafood, and our first product is the meat of the freshwater eel.”
Roee Nir, co-founder and CEO of Forsea
“We’re not an eel company,” said Nir. “We’re a cultivated meat company focused on fish and seafood, and our first product is the meat of the freshwater eel.”
In its current research and development phase, Forsea’s operations occur on one floor in a building in Rehovot, just outside Tel Aviv.
The eventual eel meat is developed right down the hall from Nir’s office.
Moria Shimoni, another of Forsea’s co-founders and chief technology officer, gave The World a tour of the area.
“This is where the magic happens,” said Shimoni before correcting herself. “Actually, all of the places … is where the magic happens: It starts with the cell isolation, it continues with the media development. This is actually the media. The media inside the bio-reactor is the media we developed.”
When Shimoni says “media,” she means the complex formula that feeds the eel cells that grow in the bioreactor.
Moria Shimoni, co-founder and CTO of Forsea, shows The World’s Marco Werman an eel cell line that is kept in the deep freeze until it’s ready to go in the bioreactor.Alon Farago/The WorldIn that sense, the magic really does happen in the bioreactors: stainless-steel tanks that mimic each cell line’s temperature, oxygen and nutritional needs as the team at Forsea trial-and-errors their way to something that tastes like unagi.
Nir said that cultivated meat grown in a lab has many benefits over conventional fish farming, but there’s one big thing: “The aquaculture that has been helping close the supply-demand gap for decades has been quite impactful for the environment,” he said. “And what’s expected to close the supply-demand gap of fish and seafood is cultivated meat.”
Cultivated meat also eliminates the need to grow animal-feed crops. As far as climate change emissions, various studies have shown that cultivated beef could improve the situation over real cows. However, other studies suggest that the infrastructure around cultivated beef could actually increase those emissions.
There are other benefits the cultivated eel industry is promoting, like a massive drop in microplastic pollution as a result of abandoning fishing nets.
A Forsea staffer shows a bioreactor that is the home for eel cell line development.Alon Farago/The WorldBut all of these positives depend on one big obstacle.
Faraz Harsini, a senior scientist at the Washington, DC-based Good Food Institute, who focuses on developing lab-grown meat, said, “With cultivated meat, the challenge is really to scale it up.”
Right now, the cultivated meat industry has proof of concept. But there’s a way to go still before you find cultivated eel in a cooler in the produce department.
Harsini said that better, more cost-effective bioreactors and cheaper media will be required to feed the cells.
But if that happens, Harsini will be optimistic about the benefits.
“This is something people don’t realize: The United Nations says that the top drivers of the next pandemic are due to increased demand for animal protein.”
Faraz Harsini, senior scientist at the Good Food Institute
“This is something people don’t realize: The United Nations says that the top drivers of the next pandemic are due to increased demand for animal protein,” he said.
In other words, as the production of conventional chicken, pork and beef is increasingly industrialized to feed the world’s growing population, the probability of another outbreak of some disease — avian flu, swine flu or COVID-19 — will increase.
Cultivated meat lowers that risk.
“Because it’s a process that is completely under control, you are constantly sampling and testing for any microbes and contamination, and if you have contamination, you just waste a batch,” Harsini said.
Farmers pump their livestock with antibiotics to prevent infections and to make them grow faster. Cultivated meat also eliminates the need for antibiotics.
And Harsini, like many scientists, is deeply concerned about where continued reliance on antibiotics in the current food system will take the planet.
“According to WHO’s former director, it’s going to be the end of modern medicine when we have [an] antibiotic-resistant pandemic,” he said. “Again, that’s a problem completely mitigated with cultivated meat.”
Israel has become an incubator for companies on the cutting edge of cultivated meat. Just down the road from Forsea is Aleph Farms, which is working on cultivated beef.
Many scientists are deeply concerned about where continued reliance on antibiotics in the current food system will take the planet, so they’re working on safer alternatives.Alon Farago/The WorldNo fewer than half a dozen cultivated meat operations are scattered around the country.
Tami Tvash, Forsea’s vice president for research and development, showed The World several new creations, including what can only be described as “beef ink,” a combination of muscle and fat cells designed to smell and even sound like steak when it’s on a hot skillet.
“And with this ink,” Tvash said, “we’re actually printing a steak, so we can print areas with muscle cells, we can do areas with fat components in a steak.”
Aleph Farms is working on a minute-steak, and once that gets scaled up, thicker cuts of meat will follow.
Why is this all happening in Israel?
Faraz Harsini of the Good Food Institute, which has an affiliate office there, says the Israeli government has actively supported food innovation because “Israel relies heavily on importing meat, and so for them, it’s a matter of national security.”
It likely should be one for the rest of the world, too.
This work is something Nir at Forsea is excited to do every day.
“How many industries do you know that are targeting two of the world’s biggest problems: nutrition and climate?” he said.
Nir expects Forsea’s first product will reach the market late next year or early 2026.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified a last name. The original version had Faraz Farsini, but the correct name is Faraz Harsini, which has been updated to reflect this.
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Since Instagram launched in 2010, the platform has been wildly popular in Turkey.
By some counts, more than half of Turkey’s population uses Instagram.
Users like Mutlu Karaduman, who makes runway fashion pieces out of scraps from a village in central Anatolia — and Burak Ozdemir, a chef who prepares giant portions of food while smiling straight at the camera — have found devoted followings on Instagram.
But now, Instagram has gone dark in Turkey — after the Turkish government unexpectedly blocked the app late last week.
Burak Ozdemir, a chef who prepares giant portions of food while smiling straight at the camera, has a devoted following on Instagram (@cznburak). Burak Ozdemir’s Instagram accountTurkish officials accused Instagram of taking down some posts expressing condolences for the death of Hamas’ top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an airstrike in Iran on July 31. Early in the morning on Aug. 2, Turkey’s information technology regulator blocked access to Instagram across the country.
The Turkish government’s move does not bode well for a community of small, online business owners in the country who rely on the app for advertising and direct sales. In fact, some of them say they are already feeling the pain.
“It’s the only platform that I have. I don’t have a physical store, so it’s the only store that people can reach,” said Idil Kafali — who sells her own clothing designs on an Instagram account called House of IKA.
There are ways around a digital block — by installing a VPN, or virtual private network. The Turkish government has banned several VPN services, and others require paid subscriptions.
Idil Kafali sells her own clothing designs on an Instagram account called House of IKA (@houseof.ika). Idil Kafali’s Instagram accountAlthough Kafali uses a VPN to access her account, not everyone has access to one. She said her sales have already slowed down.
“On my own account, I’m glad I’m not using it that often. I don’t like to be on Instagram the whole day,” he said. “But for my business, it’s the opposite.”
Turkey’s Association of E-Commerce Operators estimates that the Instagram block could affect about $57 million in online sales every day for small businesses.
Meriç Korkmaz, who created a side business selling homemade candles on her Instagram account, @candlesofmiracle, said the shutdown has made it harder to reach her customers.
“It has reduced my sales, and the uncertainty about whether it will open has negatively affected my motivation to keep this business going,” Korkmaz said.
After a major outcry, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan dug in — saying the ban was a response to what he called the “digital fascism” of social media companies.
Meta, Instagram’s parent company, has been in talks with the Turkish government to overturn the block. It did not return a request for comment.
“You cannot find any legal explanation for blocking access to such a popular platform in Turkey,” said Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor and activist for digital freedom.
He said that the move is fairly typical for the Turkish government. It banned YouTube for two years, and Wikipedia for almost three.
These decisions can be made quickly and unilaterally by the communications regulator, often based on a complaint from a ministry. Recently, both Wattpad and Roblox were blocked over concerns for inappropriate content and its impact on children.
“Within four hours, all internet service providers comply with that decision,” Akdeniz said. “Everything happens in the background automatically, like a virus update.”
Akdeniz has filed a legal challenge against the Instagram block, but he said that he expects that Turkish users are in for a long wait.
After a weekend of uncertainty, many Turkish Instagrammers began to post again, including Turkey’s state-affiliated news agency, Anadolu Ajansi.
Others came back with jokes about their new VPNs, which hide the country where a user is based by routing it through a different internet service provider.
“Instagram’s closed, so we’re traveling,” posted Buket Yildirim Sonmez, who posts satirical videos about life as a housewife on her account, @buketyildirims. “Which country are you in, my dears?”
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Zohra Ahmadi is a 15-year-old trumpet player from Afghanistan, where the Taliban — on top of limiting education for girls — has banned music altogether.
In 2021, Ahmadi moved with 300 members of the Afghan Youth Orchestra to Portugal, thousands of miles away from their families, to continue playing and learning.
The governments of Portugal and Qatar sponsored them.
“So, we are there and we play music, and we are the voice of people who don’t play music or can’t go to school,” she said. “And we want to show the Taliban that they cannot silence the music in Afghanistan.”
Ahmadi is one of 700 young instrumentalists from five continents who have gathered in New York City this week for Carnegie Hall’s World Orchestra Week.
Hundreds of young musicians including Zohra Ahmadi, a 15-year-old trumpet player from Afghanistan, traveled to New York City for the World Orchestra Week festival.©2024 Chris LeeSeven participating youth orchestras each have their own concert on the Carnegie stage. Musicians attend each other’s concerts as well as various workshops. World-renowned conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who himself started out in Venezuela’s youth orchestra program El Sistema, led a session with all of the musicians together in one room.
In a separate workshop, participants shared their wishes for the world and wrote them on ribbons. Some of their wishes were projected on the walls at Carnegie Hall.
“So, my wish is for lalela,” said Gilah Kellner, the 20-year-old concertmaster of the new Africa United Youth Orchestra. “Lalela is Zulu for ‘listen,’ which implies the problems of the world start when people are not listening to one another, and there’s a lot of miscommunication and misunderstandings. A lot of wars began like that.”
Carnegie Hall brought together more than 700 young musicians from nearly 40 countries, including Afghanistan, Israel, Ukraine and Venezuela, for its World Orchestra Week, a musical play-in event at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. Conductor Gustavo Dudamel led the musicians through a repertoire including the works of John Williams, Beethoven and Ginastera. Seven renowned youth ensembles traveled from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States for the historical event.Fadi KheirAnna Zigmont, a 20-year-old Ukrainian violinist with the European Union Youth Orchestra, had a similar wish: “Obviously, it’s peace for all of us because it’s dangerous. And we need to be patient. And also, like, I think the music, it’s one kind of thing that we could all do together — musicians — and it could really change the world.”
Samuel Igbo, a violinist of Nigerian descent who is a high school senior in Texas and a member of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States, agreed: “It’s about seeing people from not only our point of view but allowing ourselves to be open to other points of view and unique points of view, allowing us to really be a part of each other.”
Sarah Johnson, who runs the Weill Music Institute, Carnegie Hall’s educational arm, said that it’s gratifying to witness the musicians’ “real joy in playing music. Yes, and getting to know each other has been moving and beautiful and hopeful,” she said.
WQXR broadcast all the WOW concerts and they’re available to stream.
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Hundreds of drummers set up their kits in a semi-circle around a big stage.
Xandeco Azevedo put his retro electronic Yamaha drum kit through the motions ahead of the show. He’s been playing drums since he was 8 years old. Today, he’s nearly 50.
Azevedo has been participating in the Orquestra De Baterias, where hundreds of drummers perform together in the southern Brazilian city of Florianopolis annually. It’s the largest drumming orchestra in the Americas and the largest annual drumming event in the world. Over the weekend, 400 drummers played together as thousands of people turned out to listen to the rock ‘n’ roll show.
“This is my ninth time participating,” Azevedo said. “I only missed the first one and one during the [COVID-19] pandemic.”
Orquestra De Baterias is the largest drumming orchestra in the Americas and the largest annual drumming event in the world.Michael Fox/The WorldDrumming is his main gig, but this orchestra is not just for professionals. There are drummers in the crowd from the very young to the very old.
Giovanna Albuquerque was near the back. She is only 13 but has already been participating for six years.
Giovanna Albuquerque, 13, has been participating in the annual drumming event in Florianopolis for six years.Courtesy of E. Leindecker“It’s an incredible feeling,” Albuquerque said. “It’s marvelous seeing everyone playing together and so well.”
“It’s an incredible feeling.”
Giovanna Albuquerque, participant in Orquestra De Baterias event
Organizer Paula Borges started organizing the event in 2013 as part of a city program called “Cultural Marathon.” She calls it the largest multicultural event in the state of Santa Catarina—it began with only 35 drummers the first year—before it became the largest in the world.
“We never imagined it would grow to this size,” Borges said. “It started tiny, and it was already incredible because drums really fill a space. But now, we have drummers coming from more than 50 different cities, and it’s so cool.”
Organizer Paula Borges started staging the annual drumming event in Florianopolis, Brazil, in 2013 as part of a city program called the “Cultural Marathon.” She calls it the largest multicultural event in the state of Santa Catarina.Courtesy of E. LeindeckerBoth foreign and Brazilian rock are huge in Florianopolis. João Moura Lima was in the crowd with his wife and 3-year-old son, who was wearing large black headphones to protect his ears from the noise.
Lima said Brazilian rock and heavy metal bands like Sepultura are well-known abroad.
João Moura Lima with his 3-year-old son at Orquestra De Baterias in Brazil.Courtesy of E. Leindecker“Dave Grohl, the drummer for Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, is even a big fan,” Lima said.” So, Brazilian rock has a lot to offer.”
A band on stage fronted the 400 drummers and their kits. The players had been practicing the repertoire at home — from YouTube videos — for weeks. All of the songs were covers of famous bands, with several songs from famous Brazilian rock musicians: Outros Bárbaros, Charlie Brown, Jr. and NX Zero.
Drumsticks could be seen beating in unison, with the players’ heads bouncing, like a huge Brazilian samba band with drum kits and rock music.
The band on stage fronts the 400 drummers and their kits during the Orquestra De Baterias in Florianopolis, Brazil.Michael Fox/The WorldThe crowd and the drummers loved the experience.
“This is a celebration,” said Henrique Boaventura Vieira, a 46-year-old lawyer who started drumming four years ago. “No one cares if you screw up. No one can hear the mistakes.”
A young boy participates in the Orquestra De Baterias in Florianopolis, Brazil.Michael Fox/The WorldHe added the most important message is that anyone can be a musician. You just need to play and enjoy it.
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New Bedford, Massachusetts’ Feast of the Blessed Sacrament, a cultural festival with religious roots, is billed as the largest Portuguese feast in the world. It’s more than a century old, but this year, behind the scenes, something very big is changing. For the first time — and under threat of a lawsuit — women have been allowed to join the Feast Committee.
An impromptu dance a little bit like a conga line has started at the Feast grounds in New Bedford, to the beat of lively Portuguese music playing from the sound system. But it’s only a break from the day’s real task: the hanging of the greens.
On the Sunday before the Feast, volunteers go out to Westport to cut bayberry. They fill an entire roll-off, and it’s been emptied here, in the middle of this open-air building.
The greens will be lashed to about 70 metal arches to decorate the parade route.
Bayberry fragrance is everywhere, and the energy here is contagious — not just because this is a celebration of family, and love, and heritage, but also because three generations of women are here — and their status has changed.
“I think everyone — you can see, everyone’s here with open arms,” Jenna Peixoto, 29, said. “I just flew in yesterday, but … I’ve just felt nothing but love. And I think most of the women could agree with that as well.”
She lives in Georgia now, but she’s one of seven women who agreed to sue the Madeiran club, Club Madeirense S. S. Sacramento, which runs the Feast, if the men wouldn’t let women join the much-honored Feast Committee and the club itself.
A vote to allow women failed last fall. Then, in April, armed with the potential lawsuit, supporters finally got the 75% majority of men’s votes they needed.
“We’re so excited,” Peixoto said. “You know, my sister’s on the committee, my cousins, my aunt, my grandmother. It’s just — it’s different. We’re seeing the feast through a new light, that we’re able to actually be a part of the planning.”
Her great-grandfather was one of four men from Portugal’s Madeira islands who founded this feast, yet her grandmother was unable to serve — until now.
She’s here, sitting in a chair, trimming the bayberry to make sure it’s right. Her name is Maria Lurdes Coutinho Peixoto, and she is 87 years old.
“It’s hard to believe that we finally got in,” she said. “We’ve been waiting [for] this for many years.”
Women have volunteered all along, doing preparation and working in the food and souvenir stands.
But she says she never thought she would see this change in her own lifetime.
“Because the men are stubborn,” she said. “A lot of the men were unhappy about it. But we’re here, and we’re here to stay.”
During the April vote, Jane Gonsalves was waiting outside. She’s a former city councilor in New Bedford and another of the group who hired a lawyer. She says the secret ballot was contentious.
“That’s what we’ve heard,” she said. “I mean, there are people that are really unhappy about it. … And that day, as the members left the meeting, there were a lot of members that didn’t talk to us on the way out, didn’t congratulate us, didn’t look at us, anything.”
She says a loss in court or a settlement would have cost the club money, and possibly its nonprofit status. So, the men ended up with little choice.
She’s expecting some bumps along the road to inclusion. But she says she still feels good about the vote — just not naively so.
Some men have openly supported the change. One of them is John Alves, vice chair of the Museum of Madeiran Heritage, adjacent to the Feast grounds.
“While on the outside, we look like an old feast — you know, frying linguica, putting the money in the cigar box — we’re not — you know, this is serious business.”
With the full inclusion of women, he says the club is already reaping benefits. Women are bringing new skills in things like law, public relations, and “all kinds of services that an organization like ours needs now.”
“And we know the responsibility of that, because we support a lot of charities, a lot of scholarships, and we need to do this right,” he said.
Over at the Feast grounds, each time the volunteers finish a bayberry arch, they lift it high to walk it out to the street. A cheer goes up to celebrate.
With every arch, the women here get closer to Sunday’s parade, on the closing day of the Feast. They’ll be cheered in their first public recognition as members of the committee.
Peixoto says it’s going to be very emotional.
“But very incredible, to just feel the connection to my great-grandfather, while I stand next to my grandmother,” she said. “So — just feeling very loved and very connected to my heritage right now.”
And her grandmother? She’s ready, too.
“Oh, I’m so happy,” she said. “I talk about it, I get goosebumps. … And my granddaughters kept saying, ‘When is our turn?’ We finally got our turn.”
Every year, the club takes a group photo of the Feast Committee — men, in matching suits. Those photos line the museum walls, dating back to the early 1900s.
For many here, this year’s photo — and Feast — will go down in family lore as the year that keeping a culture alive didn’t hold anyone back.
This story was originally published by CAI, The Cape and Islands NPR Station.
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Rosa Albina García still remembers when Hugo Chávez visited her neighborhood in 1998 — when he was campaigning for president. She lives in the favela of La Vega, at the top of a hill overlooking the city.
Chávez, the charismatic, former military officer who took office in February of 1999, promised to empower the poor through a more inclusive democracy.
“Chávez would enter local businesses and talk to people in the streets,” she said from her tiny brick house with a corrugated zinc roof. “No other president had come here to the highest point of this barrio.”
Caracas favela of La Vega in Venezuela.Tibisay Zea/The WorldGarcía was born in Colombia’s countryside. She and her 10 siblings never received an education, as they had to start working at an early age. In the 1970s, most of her family moved to neighboring Venezuela because it offered better jobs and salaries at the time.
For decades, García worked hard as a janitor until then-President Chávez offered her an opportunity she would never forget: She learned to read and write through one of Chávez’s social programs, Misión Robinson. It changed her life. She was able to get a job with the city and stop cleaning.
Rosa Albina García, who lives in the Caracas favela of La Vega says she will continue voting for Nicolás Maduro “until death.”Tibisay Zea/The WorldIn time, though, Chavez’s revolution turned into an authoritarian and repressive regime that, as evidence shows, executed an electoral fraud. Even so, today, his legacy looms — millions of Venezuelans continue to support Chavez’s handpick successor, Nicolás Maduro.
‘Venezuela is going to be for everyone’People would call the president during his weekly Sunday television show, “Aló Presidente,” and beg him for favors, like a house, a job or education, and Chávez would promise to grant their wishes.
Chávez, taking advantage of high oil revenues, launched a series of short-term programs called misiones or “missions,” which helped people get affordable education, food and housing.
Chávez began to call his movement socialism and frequently talked about Karl Marx and Simón Bolívar, the founding father of Venezuela and other South American nations.
Opponents say Chávez led a cult of personality and a populist government. However, sociologist David Smilde said that people’s devotion to Chávez was anything but irrational.
“He promised that Venezuela is going to be for everyone, that he would use Venezuela’s resources to incorporate everyone and attend to everybody’s needs. And he actually does that.”
Chávez won several democratic elections and stayed in power until he died in 2013.
Chávez’s body remains are permanently displayed at a museum in the Caracas favela of 23 de Enero.Tibisay Zea/The World“If you’re that person who is poor, excluded, feels you don’t belong, and then you have this president [who] comes along and does include you, that generates an attachment,” he said. “And, of course, there’s an emotion to that.”
But Chávez was also criticized for his authoritarian style and failure to diversify the economy.
Right before he died of cancer, he picked Maduro as his successor.
A country in ruinsMaduro inherited economic problems, including low oil prices and a declining oil industry. That, combined with bad economic policies and rampant corruption, left the country in ruins, which meant Maduro had to stop many of Chávez’s missions.
Kids play basketball in La Vega, Caracas, Venezuela.Tibisay Zea/The World“Maduro was never as popular as Chávez,” said Leonardo Vivas, a Venezuelan professor of Latin American studies. “There were waves of protests against the way that he was handling the country, and to stay in power, he had to adopt a number of repressive measures.”
His regime has imprisoned political opponents, disqualified opposition candidates, and now, controls all democratic institutions, the military and the media.
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, left, talks to then Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro in Montevideo, Uruguay, Dec. 18, 2007. Matilde Campodonico/AP/FileNearly 8 million Venezuelans — a quarter of the country’s population — have left, according to the United Nations.
Maria Torres, another resident of La Vega, has a picture of Chávez hanging in the living room.
“My financial situation is not good. There is no doubt about that,” she said.
Her pension is only about $4 a month, and it’s far from enough to live on, so she depends on subsidized food and special bonuses distributed by the government.
Maria Torres’s living room is decorated with a framed picture of the late former President Hugo Chávez.Tibisay Zea/The WorldTorres blames poverty on the economic sanctions imposed by the United States in 2019. But Rosa Albina García, her neighbor, acknowledged the situation started to get bad before the sanctions.
Both García and Torres say they are loyal to Chávez and will continue backing Maduro for the years to come.
Marcelo Andrade, a Venezuelan artist who lives in Los Naranjos, a wealthier neighborhood in Caracas, said he still supports Maduro because he’s defending Venezuela against imperialism.
“Latin American countries have long been victims of a colonialist model imposed by the United States, which has sabotaged Chávez’s revolution.”
He said that he is convinced that US economic sanctions are solely responsible for Venezuela’s collapse.
Despite millions of Venezuelans still backing Maduro, evidence is mounting to prove his regime just stole the July 28 election.
Data provided by the opposition and independently verified by several journalists, scientists, and nonprofit organizations indicates that the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, got twice as many votes as Maduro and won in every Venezuelan state.
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In Bangladesh, protests against job quotas that began last month morphed into a mass movement that brought down the country’s prime minister.
After 15 years in power, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned and reportedly left the country. Military leaders asked jubilant protesters for time and patience as they look for a way forward.
Protesters celebrate at the Parliament House premise after news of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Aug. 5, 2024.Fatima Tuj Johora/APToday’s news follows a deadly Sunday in Bangladesh, with an estimated 100 more people killed during protests. Journalist Waliur Rahman told The World’s host, Marco Werman, how the day’s events in Dhaka unfolded.
“There was no formal announcement from the government that Sheikh Hasina would resign,” Rahman said about the breaking news. “But suddenly, the press department of the army said that the army chief would be speaking live to the nation. And that was the first indication that something was happening.”
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, center, is flanked by her daughter Saima Wazed Putul, left, and sister Sheikh Rehana as she speaks to the media after casting her vote in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Jan. 7, 2024. Protesters stormed Hasina’s official residence on Aug. 5 as the leader’s whereabouts remain unknown.Altaf Qadri/AP/File photo“Rumors broke out that Sheikh Hasina had already left the country,” Rahman said. “We gathered that Sheikh Hasina has lost the confidence of the powerful army, and it was decided that she would leave the country. It’s still unclear that’s what happened. But it seems that the army, in fact, withdrew their support from her government, and it made all the difference.”
Marco Werman: So, describe the scenes in the capital, Dhaka, over the past 24 hours.Waliur Rahman: Sunday was one of the deadliest days of protests in Bangladesh, with street fights in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country. In total, more than 300 people were killed in just three weeks time.
It happened because the government decided to ask its supporters, the ruling Awami League party members, to come out on the street and fight with the people — general people, students and others who were basically protesting the government’s job quotas. This morning, in fact, several people were killed by police firing in Dhaka.
So, the situation was like chaos everywhere. The students, in fact, began a march towards the prime minister’s residence, which changed everything.Men run past a shopping center which was set on fire by protesters during a rally against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government demanding justice for the victims killed in the recent countrywide deadly clashes, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Aug. 4, 2024.Rajib Dhar/APIt also seems that at a certain stage, the military decided to let the
protesters protest and let them access government buildings. Where did the
protesters actually go?The protesters went everywhere, in fact, all the government buildings. The prime minister’s residence was stormed, then looted. Everything was taken by the protesters. Then, they stormed the parliament building and the prime minister’s office.We also hear that statues have been pulled down off their pedestals. What are
those statues of? And what does that tell us?Well, that is the statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of
Bangladesh. He was the father of Sheikh Hasina. As I said, people are so
angry that they pulled out some murals and statues in many places in the
country.Protesters try to demolish a large statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of Bangladesh leader Sheikh Hasina, after she resigned as prime minister, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Aug. 5, 2024.Rajib Dhar/APHow significant with that, as kind of context, would you say Sheikh Hasina’s resignation is?Yeah, it is very symbolic. It’s like when people pulled down Saddam Hussein’s statue in Iraq. It’s very symbolic and it may indicate an end of the regime of Sheikh Hasina.So, if it is the end, who today, in Bangladesh, is actually in power?The military, this powerful group, is now in control of everything. But again, we still don’t know what will happen next because the army chief spoke to the nation today, and he said that that there will be an interim government.
The army chief said that he will be meeting with the president. The president is a figurehead president but he has some constitutional power. So, the army chief went to the presidential palace to meet him, along with some other political leaders, who are basically opposition political leaders, and representatives from other groups.
But again, the army will be behind everything. So, they will be calling the shots.Protesters climb a public monument as they celebrate the news of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Aug. 5, 2024.Rajib Dhar/APCan you describe the mood in Bangladesh right now?People are very, very nervous. People don’t know what will happen because of this violence that is still continuing in many places around the country. People are nervously waiting to see what the situation will look like tomorrow and the days after.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Related: Students in Bangladesh call for leadership change as protests against quota system turn violent
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People throughout much of the Middle East are anxiously awaiting what comes next.
After two assassinations this week of leaders from Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran and its allies have promised revenge. And Israeli officials have also said they are ready for anything, with the Biden administration in the US saying it will help Israel, while cautioning it to avoid an escalation with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the situation in the Gaza Strip continues to deteriorate for Palestinian civilians — especially children.
The World’s host, Carolyn Beeler, spoke with Salim Oweis, who is a spokesperson with UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, about the humanitarian situation. He spoke from the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
Carolyn Beeler: What are you seeing where you are in Gaza right now?Salim Oweis: Getting just the basics of the basics is really a challenge, a daily challenge for so many children and families. Yesterday, I was in a camp and I was talking to the families there, and skin diseases are spreading because of the lack of hygiene due to the lack of water.
And I was talking to the mothers and they told me, “We took them to the doctors. The doctors prescribed some antibiotics or some creams and we can’t find that. And if we find it, it’s too expensive.” So, even the necessities for health are a problem. Camps are depending on delivery of food aid, water trucking.
UNICEF has a desalination plant and we deliver truck water to some camps around that area. And people wait anxiously to get that tank and another tank from another organization, and they just get in crowds queuing to get just one jerrycan of water or so. So, really, it’s not a condition that you would call a normal life.Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip flee from parts of Khan Younis, following an evacuation order by the Israeli army to leave parts of the southern area of the Gaza Strip’s second-largest city, July 27, 2024.Abdel Kareem Hana/APThe Gaza Health Ministry has reported that it has found polio virus in sewage in Gaza. I know those tests that revealed that were conducted in conjunction with UNICEF. Can you tell me any more about how prevalent the virus is, and if there are cases of human infection that have been reported?Well, thankfully, until this moment, we don’t have any cases reported — symptomatic cases. As you said, the samples collected from two different locations in the Gaza Strip, 6 out of 7 have shown traces of a variant of polio virus. And what we’re doing now is to assess the situation.
We already have routine polio vaccines coming in, but also, there’s a need for specialized vaccines for stopping the spread or catching of the polio that we found in the sewage system.
So, as UNICEF, with our partners from WHO and UNRWA, the health authorities here and several NGOs working hand-in-hand to get those vaccines and get the children who need it vaccinated as soon as possible to stop it before it even starts.You work with the UN children’s agency. Can you tell me more about your interactions with kids in Gaza since you arrived and how they’ve been coping?Well, you can see that children are tired just as their families are. When I went to one camp, I was faced with two to three children without me even trying to interact, just coming in front of me and asking me, “When is the war going to stop?”
And really, it was heart wrenching, because I don’t have an answer for that. And when you ask them, “What do you do on your day-to-day routine?” And they say, “Well, we just spend it fetching water from either the desalination plant or any water point back home and then go back to get some more because it’s not enough, because we can’t carry much more.”
Of course, children are children. They want to play. They want to be happy. But it’s honestly, evidently, it’s becoming harder for them to be the children that they were supposed to be.A Palestinian medic helps a child wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in a hospital in Deir Al-Balah, July 27, 2024.Abdel Kareem Hana/APObviously, life is very far from normal for these kids. Is there any schooling or studying happening right now in Gaza?Not really. Of course, there are efforts to get some education back and UNICEF is trying to do that. But under the circumstances, even if we have some programs providing that education, it’s not reaching all the children in Gaza.
Just today, I met a child in a hospital, and this child has been thrown by a blast, and landed on his side, rupturing his liver and breaking his arm. And he was in agony, but at the same time, he was very sad and very upset that he lost one year of school. And he was like, “Do you think I need to redo this year?”
And I was like, “It’s OK as long as war stops.” And I was trying to encourage him. But children are really missing education, and we’re talking about Gazans who were proud of being able to study, and of their education, and even that, they’re being robbed of.I’m wondering how many times you have been in and out of Gaza since the war started, and if anything is striking you differently this time.To be honest, this is my first time in Gaza. But what I know from colleagues who have been here during the last 10 months, the situation just gets more dire. And what’s sad is the despair that grows with the situation, because we owe it to children not to let them fall into despair and lose hope.
While the world is discussing, children are dying. Children are suffering. Children are losing their childhood. And this needs to stop now.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Related: Counting the civilian death toll in Gaza
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Last month, the globe set, and then immediately broke, the record for the hottest day ever. So, what foods and drinks do people crave when temperatures go through the roof? That’s a question The World staff decided to answer with some of their local favorites.
TurkeyDurrie Bouscaren, reporter
Cesme, Turkey
Deniz börülcesiea (sea beans) and fried fish
“Here in Turkey, I have all of these memories of putting used watermelon rinds in a fish trap and catching fish, and then frying it on deck and eating it that night. Fish can sometimes be risky in the summer, right? Because it’s so hot, you have to know it’s fresh. But there is nothing better than eating a plate of fried fish. Like salty, lemony. Maybe with some arugula on the side that you kind of bite in between bites. There’s nothing like a plate of that next to the water when it’s hot outside.”
Sea bean salad is what The World’s reporter Durrie Bouscaren chooses to eat as a nice, cooling meal during the hot summers in Cesme, Turkey.Fried fish, shepherd’s salad, and zucchini pancakes are what The World’s reporter Durrie Bouscaren considers as “boat food.”SpainGerry Hadden, correspondentBarcelona, Spain
Salmorejo
“Salmorejo, like a lot of comfort foods, at least in Spain, has humble origins. It comes from the south, where, over a century ago, rural Andalusians were keen on not letting any food go to waste … even old bread. But it’s become popular all over Spain. So a big shout out to Andalusia because Salmorejo is delicious.”
Salmorejo is a creamy, cold soup from southern Spain. Its key ingredients include pears, tomatoes, olive oils and bread.Noto Fotos/FlickrVenezuelaTibisay Zea, correspondentCarcas, Venezuela
Sugar cane juice
“Sugar cane is one of my favorite drinks. It is the liquid extracted from pressed sugar cane. It is popular as a drink in many tropical countries. It’s very common to see street vendors crushing peeled sugar. This drink is refreshing and usually served with a dash of lime or ginger juice.”
The World’s Tibisay Zea’s go-to drink during the hot Venezuelan summer is sugar cane juice, made by extracting the liquids from pressed sugarcane.Tibisay Zea/The WorldIranShirin JaafariBoston, MA
Abdoogh Khiar
“I am thinking about making one of my favorite dishes [for] this time of year. It’s called Abdoogh Khiar. I learned this recipe from my grandmother in Iran. She used to make it for us all the time in the summer. I can still smell the fresh cucumber and the dried mint and rose petals that she used to crush in the palm of her hands to release all the flavors and the aroma.”
Abdoogh Khiar, an Iranian cold yogurt soup.Shirin JaafariIndiaSushmita Pathak, reporterDelhi, India
Curd rice
“It’s 91°F. So on days like this, my go-to dish is curd rice. It’s a very simple, humble dish: curd and rice. Curd is unsweetened yogurt. It’s easy on your gut. Most importantly, the dish is cool because of the yogurt. And so as you eat it, it cools you from the inside almost.”
Reporter Sushmita Pathak poses with a bowl of curd rice, her go-to summer cold food.Sushmita PathakThe post Which cold foods do people across the globe enjoy during sweltering summer months? appeared first on The World from PRX.
The US and Russia completed a prisoner swap on Thursday, with Moscow releasing Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan in a multinational deal that set some two dozen people free, according to officials in Turkey, where the exchange took place. It is the largest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history.
This is the latest exchange between Washington and Moscow in the past two years, following a December 2022 trade that brought WNBA star Brittney Griner back to the US in exchange for notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout.
Russia, meanwhile, secured the freedom of its own nationals convicted of serious crimes in the West.
The World’s Daniel Ofman has the latest, and explains to host Marco Werman what it all may mean for US-Russia relations.
Marco Werman: What is the status of the exchange right now?Daniel Ofman: We’ve learned that this was a complex exchange that involved the US, Germany and Russia, other European countries as well. And during the press conference earlier today, Biden shared a couple more details about the exchange. Like what? Can you share a little more about what went on there?So, the families of those Americans freed in the deal stood at Biden’s side during the press conference. And in the days leading up to the swap, there was a lot of speculation that something was in the works. Prisoners in Russia were being moved. Analysts began tracking flight data online. And finally, we saw images of Russian planes landing in Turkey. We’re still learning more about what went into reaching this deal, but we can say that this is already a major diplomatic achievement.Right, a diplomatic achievement, of course — and an enormous relief for those involved. The US, Russia and five other countries carried out the prisoner swap — and 26 people total were released in this multinational deal. Who are they?So, these individuals are journalists, anti-war activists and opposition politicians. Perhaps the most well-known among them is Evan Gershkovich, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal. He was detained in Russia in March of last year, and was sentenced last month to a 16-year prison term based on trumped-up espionage charges. So, since his detention, there’s been a major campaign from the Wall Street Journal, with his family and friends all advocating for his release. And another US citizen who was released today is former Marine Paul Whelan. He was detained in 2018, and the US has designated both Whelan and Gershkovich as wrongfully detained. And another American journalist released today is also Alsu Kurmasheva, who’s been in Russian jail since June of last year. So, those are the three Americans who were released. But there are also many Russians who are released today as well.Who are they and why were they imprisoned in Russia?So, one of them is opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza. He also holds a US green card. He’s someone who’s spoken out publicly against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including on our program. The Kremlin saw him as an enemy. And on two occasions, Kara-Murza was poisoned. So, that was back in 2015 and 2017. But even after those poisonings, he kept traveling back to Russia. And he would often say that he’s a Russian politician, and therefore, he had to be in Russia in order to represent his people despite all the risks. So, aside from Kara-Murza, there are other Russian dissidents who were also freed today, including Ilya Yashin, Oleg Orlov, Lilia Chanysheva and some others. These are all people well-known inside of Russia as human rights defenders, pro-democracy activists and politicians.So, let’s get to the other end of the deal. Who are the Russians who were sent back home today?So, there’s a list of eight adults who have been released. They’re all individuals who’ve been convicted in the US or in Europe for crimes like murder, espionage and cybercrimes. And perhaps the most noteworthy Russian citizen among them who’s been released is Vadim Krasikov, an assassin working with Russia’s Federal Security Service. Krasikov was convicted in Germany for murdering a Chechen dissident in 2019. For years, Germany was reluctant to include Krasikov in a swap like this one because of the nature of his crime. However, likely because of US pressure and perhaps some other incentives, they’ve agreed to the swap. And it’s worth mentioning that in an interview back in February, Putin referred to Krasikov as a patriot and mentioned him within the context of a potential swap.Now that this deal has happened, what does it mean for the bigger picture of US relations with Russia?So, from the Biden administration’s perspective, they’ve said a bunch of times that returning Americans imprisoned abroad on false charges is a priority, no matter where they are, Russia or otherwise. And this deal is them following through on that commitment. Now, from Putin’s perspective, there are a few other messages that he could be sending here.What do you think Putin gets out of this prisoner exchange?Well, perhaps the Kremlin sees this as an opportunity to show that it’s a willing negotiating partner, and that these types of negotiations could lead to some impressive results. This outcome potentially opens the door to more negotiations on other significant issues, like the war in Ukraine. And another rationale for Moscow is to show members of its security services that the Kremlin will go above and beyond to bring its people back home. And the idea is to reinforce loyalty among the security services and encourage other people to fall into line with the Kremlin’s agenda.The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity and length.
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The Israeli army claimed responsibility for a missile strike that killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in his apartment in Beirut, Lebanon. At least three people were killed in that strike, and some 70 others were wounded.
Hezbollah fighters carry the coffin of their top commander Fouad Shukur, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike, during his funeral procession in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 1, 2024.Hussein Malla/APHours later, Hamas’ leader-in-exile Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard were also killed in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Haniyeh was there for the swearing-in of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
Iranians at Enqelab-e-Eslami Sq. during their funeral ceremony of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 1, 2024.Vahid Salemi/APThe attacks have implications for the entire Middle East. The World’s Host, Carolyn Beeler, spoke with Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, about what it means for the region.
Carolyn Beeler: Is there a risk of escalation in the region after these strikes?Steven Cook: Already, [Iran’s Supreme Leader] Ayatollah [Ali] Khamenei has vowed revenge on the Israelis, and the Iranians sit atop what’s called the “axis of resistance,” which has been basically firing on the Israelis since October of 2023. So, now they have even more motivation. And the Israelis are basically pushing out their chest and saying, “We’re not afraid.” So, I think there’s a very significant escalation risk. And there will be attacks on the Israelis from multiple directions.If Israel was behind the strike that killed the Hamas leader in Tehran, what do you think the thinking was here for the Israelis, especially if Haniyeh was involved in negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza?I think it’s clear that the negotiations, as we know them to be, were essentially a ruse. The Israelis have stuck to their overall strategic goal, which is the destruction of Hamas. And the Hamas leadership in Gaza, specifically in the name of Yahya Sinwar, believed that he was winning the conflict because he sees it as a total conflict. And dragging the Israelis into a grinding conflict in the Gaza Strip that undermined Israel’s international standing was all positive from the perspective of Sinwar and the Israelis who believe that their military pressure has begun to weaken Hamas. So, I think that the idea that there [would] be these ceasefire negotiations, they’ve dragged on for months with no conclusion. And that’s because the critical political actors in this conflict don’t want one.So, you don’t think that the death of Haniyeh changes that materially because those conversations were not serious to begin with?Right. That’s exactly the case, though, there is now going to be escalation as a result of the killing of Haniyeh.Palestinians inspect the rubble of a school destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, July 27, 2024.Abdel Kareem Hana/APUS officials, of course, have been saying for months that they would like to get a truce that would free Israeli hostages and put Israel and the Palestinians on track to find a more lasting peace. We’ve talked about those negotiations already, but at this point, what do you think the Biden administration is saying to the leadership in Israel right now?Look, there was a dramatic meeting last week between [US] Vice President [Kamala Harris] and [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu in which, at the end, she said, it’s time to get the war over with, sign the ceasefire. And this is the Israelis’ answer: We, too, are interested in ending this war, but we’re going to do it on our terms. And essentially, by doing this, Israelis are jamming the United States. If you remember, in Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress, he made the very strong case that Israel’s enemies are the US’s enemies. That is specifically the Iranians, as well as its “axis of evil.” So, I think it’s going to be hard for the United States to distance itself from the Israelis on this, despite the fact that across the board, officials in Washington are quite concerned about an intensification of the regional conflict that’s already underway.So, given that, you’re saying that Israel is trying to make it harder for there to be daylight between Israel and the US. How much leverage do you think the US has with the Israeli government right now and its regional partners to try to bring this war in Gaza to an end?I don’t think the United States has much leverage at all for two reasons: One, the Israelis define this conflict as an existential one. So, no matter how important the United States is to Israel when the Israelis believe that they’re fighting for their lives, there’s very little that the United States can do or little influence the United States can bring to bear to shape how they try to save themselves. Secondly, I think this whole idea of leverage is sort of half-baked. You only have leverage if you’re willing to use it. And the United States isn’t willing to use it because we don’t know what the answer is once we use it. It’s a single bullet in the chamber. So, if the United States were to say, “We’re halting all military aid to Israel over the conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip,” for example, and the Israelis continue to fight in the Gaza Strip as they see fit, it demonstrates the profound weakness of the United States and, in fact, that it doesn’t have leverage.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Related: Counting the civilians dead in Gaza
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The Olympic triathlon kicked off with a splash into the River Seine.
A lot went into that moment, and it was a big win for the organizers in Paris. Cleaning up the river ahead of the Summer Olympic Games cost $1.5 billion and was a big gamble.
Elevated bacteria levels in the Seine postponed the men’s triathlon.
Author Sy Montgomery and illustrator Matt Patterson are both naturalists.Courtesy of Sy MontgomerySome people have been watching and hoping that the success of this high profile cleanup of the Seine will spur a global trend to restore other urban waterways.
“Swimming in a river just feels like you’re swimming in the whole lifeblood of an ecosystem,” said naturalist and author Sy Montgomery who has swum in rivers all around the globe. Her most recent book is, “Secrets of the Octopus.”
“The Seine just gave birth to Paris, and it’s the magic of the city,” Montgomery said. “When you’re swimming in a river, you’re in a living place. You’re being upheld in the arms of an
entire ecosystem. You’re swimming in life.”
The World’s host, Carolyn Beeler, spoke to Montgomery about these ecosystems.
Carolyn Beeler: For so long, humans used waterways as basically pollution dumping grounds from trash to fertilizer runoff to sewage runoff, which is the problem in so many urban waterways.
Rivers and other waterways have started to be cleaned up in many places, like in Paris. Do you know, are urban rivers generally getting cleaner, globally, or are they still getting dirtier and dirtier due to everything that is running into them?Sy Montgomery: Well, the ones that have been the objects of cleanups have had some really exciting changes. The Thames, for example, legislation from Europe removed pesticides from the water, which is really important.
Now, everyone takes digital photographs. The Thames was terribly polluted with silver from conventional photography, so all kinds of great critters have come back to the Thames and its estuaries. But, all the problems are not solved, even in the rivers that have benefited from these big cleanup efforts.
One of the things I read with horror was they were trying to restore shellfish to the estuaries of the Thames, which is great because they clean the water. But these poor mollusks, they were moving them from one place to these estuaries, and there
was so much pollution from the urine of women who were on birth control pills. And these hormones were actually causing these mollusks, no matter what sex they actually were, to grow penises.It just shows the impact of humans on these ecosystems. So, you have not swum in the Seine through Paris because, of course, previously it wasn’t clean enough to
do so. But you have swum in a lot of other places.
Can you tell me about maybe one of your most-memorable river swims?There are dolphins, which we think of as marine mammals, that live in rivers,
and some of them are gray, but some of them actually are pink as bubble gum. So, I was
researching a book on these elusive dolphins who don’t jump out of the water like
our marine ones.
I swam in lots of rivers looking for these dolphins. Some of the rivers were black as night, and it was very difficult to see them. But, on one of my last journeys to Brazil, I would swim out about a quarter mile into the Tapajós River in this very remote area.
This was not a swim-with-dolphins program. This was like you hire some boatman in
a little town, and he takes you to this remote place and you swim out into this river. And seven dolphins would come every day and swim with me. And I didn’t even possess a
mask and snorkel at that time. So, I was just opening my eyes underwater, then pulling my
head out of the water.
And sometimes, they would pull their heads out of the water, and they would look at me sideways and they would dive beneath me and they would do this amazing thing I didn’t understand at first. I would feel these bubbles sizzling up on my skin, and they were letting loose these bubbles from either their mouths or their blowholes. I later found out that in captivity, they’re known to do this to each other, and they do it as if to give you a massage.
But that’s the experience of swimming in a river. Even if you don’t see who else is there, you feel their presence. Some countries are even granting rivers personhood. The Ganges River [in India], which drains into an area called the Sundarbans on the Bay of Bengal, and I have swum there, is believed by some to be a living goddess.What would change if humans in big urban centers had more access to healthy
rivers?Well, our health would certainly improve. And I think it would connect us more to what truly gives us joy. I mean, we are a hunter-gatherer species, and we’re meant to be in the real world, the green world, the breathing world, the blue world.
Right now, we’re just shopper-gatherers. I think this is why so many of us are unhappy, are dissatisfied, and we don’t even know what we long for. But that’s where our real joy and awe and connection comes from.In the rivers that you’ve swum in and you’ve studied, what are the major
sources of pollution that then end up putting those in bad shape?Well, one of the big problems in the Amazon is gold mining. When I found out how toxic the fish I had been eating for weeks in the Tapajós was, I was alarmed, not for myself, but for all of my friends that I had just made who live there and eat that fish every single day.
But right now, the big problem is what we think of as typical pollution, chemical pollution and runoff from farmland and people’s lawns and parking lots and stuff like that.So, we’re speaking today because the Olympics has caused this impetus for Paris to clean up the Seine. I’m wondering what other kinds of circumstances or tipping
points have caused other authorities to turn dirty rivers into clean ones?The Thames is a great example of a river that was hideously polluted. Its estuary was emptied, and now eels and otters and marine mammals have returned to the estuaries.
Some of this is because of legislation from all of Europe to remove pesticides from the water — and the rivers don’t just observe the boundaries of nations. We’ve had this experience in the United States, too, working with Canada to clean up our rivers. And when we work together, that’s when we can fix our mutual problems.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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A large painting of a three-armed girl was prominently featured at Hillside Gallery’s stand at the art fair Tokyo Gendai in early July. The girl was pointing at a red ball with the No. 2 on it.
The title of the painting is “Two O’Clock.”
“Two O’Clock,” by Masaru Shichinohe, is one of the paintings that Hillside Gallery was showing at Tokyo Gendai. Gisele Regatão/The World“I think he is trying to compress a period of time,” said Shengyu Tang, Hillside’s owner, explaining the piece by Masaru Shichinohe, one of three Japanese artists represented by the gallery he opened in Tokyo in 2017.
Tang was actually born in China and he believes his international experience gives him an advantage in the art market, because he doesn’t think he could only sell domestically.
“We realized, if we could try to find artists that we think could do well outside of Japan as well, we might have a chance,” he said.
Pace Gallery was making its debut at Tokyo Gendai showing the work of American artist Robert Longo. Gisele Regatão/The WorldA few feet away from him, a major American gallery was making its debut at Tokyo Gendai.
Pace Gallery, which has offices in several cities including Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong, is just opening its Tokyo branch in September — something it has been planning for decades.
“We are really among a very few number of international galleries with a presence here in Tokyo, you might be able to count them on both your hands,” saidJoseph Baptista, a partner at Pace.
Pace’s arrival and the beginning of Tokyo Gendai last year — the country’s first major international art fair — are both happening as Japan has changed some tax laws, making it easier for international companies to operate, and allowing Japanese dealers to take a bigger bite of a market that moves $65 billion a year.
To be able to launch Tokyo Gendai, organizers negotiated a deal for exhibitors, allowing them to pay a 10% tax after their sales. Gisele Regatão/The WorldMany believe it’s about time. Even though it’s the third-largest economy in the world, Japan’s share of the global art market is just 1%, much smaller than China’s 19%.
“Japan is quite rapidly accelerating towards the position that it should hold, which is one of the major art hubs anywhere,” saidMagnus Renfrew, co-founder of Tokyo Gendai, which took place in Yokohama, about one hour by train from Tokyo.
To be able to launch the fair, organizers negotiated a tax incentive for exhibitors. Normally, international art galleries would have to pay a 10% tax up front.
“Which, of course, made it prohibitive,” Renfew said. “If they brought $10 million worth of art into the country, they would have to put down $1 million in cash.”
The increase of interest in Japanese art is also related to the popularity of anime and manga — Japanese cartoons and comics. Gisele Regatão/The WorldThe 38 international galleries that attended Tokyo Gendai this year — out of a total of 69 — were able to pay the tax after their sales.
Renfrew said that was a game changer, and it will help catapult art sales.
“The market in Asia is in the very early stage of development, and there is huge room to grow,” he said.
Japan’s art profile is rising as sales from other Asian countries are suffering.
The US government has increased tax imports on goods from China. And Hong Kong, a major arts hub, is dealing with stronger Chinese control that is limiting artistic expression.
Aside from billionaires in Japan who have several homes, most people do not have spaces for large canvases or sculptures. Gisele Regatão/The WorldThe increase of interest in Japanese art is also related to the popularity of anime and manga — Japanese cartoons and comics — and the success of artists like Yayoi Kusama, known for her pumpkins with polka dots, and Takashi Murakami, who did the art for Kanye West’s “Graduation” album.
Joan B. Mirviss, the owner of a namesake gallery in New York that specializes in Japanese art, particularly ceramics, said that, internationally, the interest in Japanese art has grown exponentially.
“I don’t think a week goes by where I don’t get a request from a serious person, who I don’t know, or a surprise museum that suddenly wants to get started,” she said.
Tokyo Gendai is Japan’s first major international art fair. Gisele Regatão/The WorldWhen Mirviss opened her gallery almost 50 years ago, she said, there were six museums in the US that were collecting Japanese ceramics.
“Now, I have over 60 institutions in the United States alone, and institutions in Europe, Australia and elsewhere,” she said.
She explained that Japanese ceramic is pretty affordable; sake cups by young artists sell for $300 — or $1,000 if they are done by a celebrated master.
But Mirviss believes the Japanese domestic art market has some challenges. Even though Japan is a rich country, she said the average person is more likely to save money than to spend on art.
“There isn’t that drive to collect, to build for status purposes,” she said.
Yayoi Kusama is one of the most-famous artists from Japan, and is particularly well-known for her polka-dot pumpkins like this one, located on Naoshima Island. Gisele Regatão/The WorldMirviss explained that aside from billionaires in Japan who have several homes, most people do not have spaces for large canvases or sculptures.
“Also, traditionally, in Japan, you don’t fill your house with art,” she said. “There’s specific spaces within the home where a work of art might be displayed. But it’s not like the West, where there’s, you know, paintings hanging in every room, and a sculpture on a corner. The Japanese don’t live like that.”
Baptista said Pace’s goal with the opening of a Tokyo branch is not only to sell to Japanese collectors, but to visitors who are flocking to the country, in part because they are interested in the culture and the art.
Tokyo Gendai took place in Yokohama, about one hour by train from the country’s capital. Gisele Regatão/The World“There is so much interest in visiting Japan,” he said. “Culturally, it’s such a place of respect.”
Attracted also by a weak yen, almost 18 million tourists visited Japan in the first six months of this year, a record. It’s still unclear how that will translate to art sales.
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The first time Lily Pike went to study in China, she was in high school. She has been back several times over the years, most recently completing a six-month intensive language course in Beijing. She said it was grueling, but that she got a lot out of it.
“I feel like every time I’ve gone back to study Chinese, I’ve been surprised by just how difficult it is and how much more there is to learn,” Pike said. There’s actually an idiom for that, she added, along the lines of “speed won’t get you there,” because learning Chinese is a long journey.
The US and China have disagreed on many things. But one thing they do agree on is wanting larger numbers of exchange students between the two countries. American students, though, are not as eager as they once were to travel to China.
One of the reasons that Pike mentioned is all the bureaucratic realities that foreigners have to deal with, something she said that Americans need to be patient with.
“When you arrive in a Chinese city, you have to register with the police within 24 hours,” she said. “I was moving, trying to find an apartment when I first arrived. So, I moved three times in the first few weeks, and each time I had to go to a different local police station to file my paperwork. Each police station had different requirements for the kinds of documents I needed,” including a lease or a landlord’s household registration.
On the whole, Pike said she would encourage American students thinking about studying in China to go for it, because there’s no substitute for being on the ground — taking in the sights and smells and having actual conversations with real people in the country.
American diplomats are sure to agree.
“When we think about diplomacy and the relationship between two big, globally oriented countries, you have to start with people,” US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said while speaking at the Asia Society in New York last month.
Burns told the audience that people from the US and China have developed all kinds of relationships over decades, and that American students going there to study are an important part of the bigger picture. But, he pointed out a massive discrepancy in the numbers of students going to China versus those coming to the US largely because it’s easier for Chinese students to come study in the United States.
“The number of American students was at 15,000 as recently as 2015, 2016, but because of zero-COVID and the [COVID-19] pandemic, it’s now about 880 American students in China versus 300,000 Chinese students here in the United States,” Burns said.
The ambassador went on to say that both the Biden administration and the government of Chinese leader Xi Jinping want more Americans studying in China.
Promotional materialThe Chinese government helped sponsor a promotional video from Shenzhen showing American students visiting the city. It mentions China’s goal of attracting 50,000 American students — an ambitious number.
Kaiser Kuo, who is Chinese American, a longtime China watcher and host of the popular “Sinica Podcast,” said that many young people in the US are more fascinated with Korean and Japanese language and culture at the moment, and many Americans no longer see China as part of a lucrative career pathway.
“There was a while where everyone living on the Upper West Side [of New York City] had a Chinese nanny for their kids,” Kuo said. “They were all taking Mandarin immersion classes. I think that corresponded to a moment where they saw a lot of economic opportunity in China. That’s clearly not the case anymore.”
Another disincentive, according to Kuo, has come straight out of Washington. The US State Department has a travel warning telling American citizens to think twice about going to China. And that is “due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit bans and the risk of wrongful detentions.”
“This is part of the American zeitgeist right now,” Kuo said. “There’s this so-called bipartisan consensus on China, that China is the new ‘baddie’ in the world and we’re all supposed to loathe and fear it. That’s obviously going to affect interests.”
But Kuo said that if you’re an American student in China, especially a language student, the risk of being arbitrarily detained is next to zero.
Isaac Stone Fish said that going to China to study is not a good idea. He was an exchange student in China in the early 2000s and went on to become a China-based journalist. He now works as a global business consultant in New York.
“It breaks my heart to have to say this but I really don’t think China is a place that American students can go anymore,” he said. “I’m very worried about a war between the United States and China over Taiwan, and having people stuck there is a very scary possibility.
Others say that a Chinese attack against Taiwan is not an imminent risk.
Andrew Field teaches history at Duke Kunshan University, a joint venture between Duke University and China’s Wuhan University, and he has been living and working in China since the 1990s. Field said the fraught relationship between Beijing and Washington is not reflected in the people-to-people connections that American students have been able to cultivate by spending time in China.
In terms of the possibility of China attacking Taiwan and dragging the US into a war, he said, “This is an issue that has been going on for 70-plus years. And yet, countless thousands of Americans have come to China, and millions of Chinese have gone to America. Again, at the people-to-people level, I think the relationship is still relatively healthy.”
Political atmosphereExperts in international education say there are certain considerations that American students should be aware of when spending any length of time in China. The Communist Party is the ultimate authority in political life. Government surveillance of online communications and social media is a given there. And academic freedom in a way that often defines university life in the US does not exist in China.
It’s important to be realistic about studying in China, said Neysun Mahboubi, the director of the Penn Project on the Future of US-China Relations at the University of Pennsylvania.
“A question that we can ask ourselves is, ‘Has China become so significantly more closed or more repressive that the calculus for the benefits of us being on the ground here, having dialogues with Chinese counterparts, learning things about China has dramatically changed?”
Things could change between the Us and China, and they can always get worse, Mahboubi added. But as he and his colleagues studying in Beijing see the situation right now, the opportunities that come with being on the ground in China definitely outweigh the risks of not being there at all.
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Beiwen Zhang was on her way to making the badminton podium at the Tokyo Olympics when the unthinkable happened: She ruptured her Achilles tendon in a match against China’s He Bingjiao.
“My coach was talking to me like, ‘Are you able to [stand] up?’ I couldn’t,” she told The World. “And then when I [touched] my Achilles, there [was] nothing there. I couldn’t even lift my foot.”
Zhang ended up getting taken off the court in a wheelchair, crying with her head in her hands. But her athletic career — which was supposed to end after the Tokyo Games — suddenly felt incomplete.
Beiwen Zhang, of the United States, cries after being injured and not being able to complete her women’s singles round of 16 badminton match against China’s He Bingjiao at the 2020 Summer Olympics, July 29, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan.Markus Schreiber/AP/File“I [didn’t] want to finish my career like [that]. Because people were, like, pushing a wheelchair, pushing me out from the court,” she said. “So, I feel like I’m … I’m not finished.”
That’s why, at the Paris 2024 Olympics, Zhang is back on the court for another shot at a gold medal.
She plans to retire after the Games, ending a decades-long career that began in her home country of China, where she was introduced to badminton at age 8.
At 13, she moved to Singapore by herself to pursue the sport. She remembers getting bullied there, and the coaches also put a lot of pressure on her to perform.
“Before the match, [the coaches were] like, ‘You have to win. We are counting your points.’” she said. “It was so hard for me to [deal] with that.”
Looking back, she’s proud of her teenage self for getting through that period. Zhang ended up retiring from Singapore’s National Team in 2010. But then, she got the opportunity to move to Las Vegas and kept playing. Her skills got better than ever.
“In the USA, I feel … I feel really free,” she said. “Everybody was so supportive. Even [if] I lose the game, the people are just cheering me on like, ‘Oh, you have the next one.’”
United States’ Beiwen Zhang plays against Australia’s Tiffany Ho during their women’s singles badminton group stage match at Porte de la Chapelle Arena during the 2024 Summer Olympics, July 27, 2024.Dita Alangkara/APZhang is among a growing group of athletes, including gymnasts, tennis players and breakers, who are speaking out about the immense pressure they face. Mental health is a focus point at the Paris Olympics, too. This year, India has sent sports psychologists with its Olympic athletes for the first time. On Monday, star USA sprinter Noah Lyles shared that he copes with pressure by working with three therapists.
Despite now competing at the highest levels of her career, Zhang said she feels more at ease than ever before.
“I actually enjoy being in the US where they don’t really know the sport, so I can do my own thing,” she said. “I don’t want people taking pictures all of the time.”
United States’ Beiwen Zhang plays against Australia’s Tiffany Ho during their women’s singles badminton group stage match at the 2024 Summer Olympics, July 27, 2024, in Paris, France.Kin Cheung/APShe may not like the limelight, but she does want the gold — and she’s going for it in Paris. With one win under her belt, her Achilles is so far holding up. No matter what the outcome at this summer’s Olympics, Zhang — now 34 – says she is hanging up her racket for good at the end of the year.
“I just want to lie down for at least a year; I don’t want to do anything,” she said while laughing. “‘Cause I’m really tired. I’ve been doing this for 20 years as a professional. I need a little bit of a break.”
Zhang will stay in Las Vegas, though, and hopes to use her legacy to make badminton more popular in the US.
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In Russia’s northwest military district last week, Russian soldiers prepared for war.
A video by Russia’s Defense Ministry shows infantry troops shooting from machine guns. They displayed their combat readiness, simulating a battlefield assault.
Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov is shown overseeing the exercise, nodding with approval.
Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov oversaw combat readiness exercises at a military training facility in northwestern Russia, the defense ministry announced Friday.
Read more: https://t.co/kMIR7tq6K9 pic.twitter.com/sO4ATNQyTe
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) July 26, 2024
The training involved everything from tank maneuvers to practicing the use of drones — all meant to mimic fighting conditions in Ukraine.
Countries bordering Russia are wary of this kind of activity.
“What people need to understand is that our house is on fire in Europe, the war in Ukraine is existential; thus, for us in Europe, putting this fire out is our priority, number one, number two, and number three, we’ll do anything necessary,” said Jonatan Vseviov, secretary general of Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum earlier this month.
Vseviov noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a threat to European security.
Countries like Estonia are worried that, in the future, the Kremlin’s appetite for war may not be limited to Ukraine. Therefore, countries along NATO’s eastern flank are beefing up their defenses.
In January, the Baltic states signed an agreement to establish a defense line to bolster NATO’s eastern border. In practice, that means increased fencing, more bunkers and other fortifications. This is one of many lessons learned from how Russia fights in Ukraine.
“Ukraine is fighting a war that no one has fought,” said Kristine Berzina, managing director for “Geostrategy North” at the German Marshall Fund. “It is teaching all of NATO militaries what a future conflict could look like and how to fight it.”
“What’s interesting here is the mix of 21st century technology — so this is electronic warfare, the use of drones, the need for satellites, Starlink — in addition to essentially 19th century approaches and early 20th century World War I era trench warfare,” she said.
Essentially, Berzina said, at this point, you cannot replace old-school warfare with new technology.
“There was an assumption, I think, in many sophisticated militaries, that new technologies, new generations of fighter jets, new generations of weaponry, [are] going to make [the] old system obsolete.”
Kristine Berzina, managing director for ‘Geostrategy North’ at the German Marshall Fund
“There was an assumption, I think, in many sophisticated militaries, that new technologies, new generations of fighter jets, new generations of weaponry, [are] going to make [the] old system obsolete,” she said.
But that has not been the case.
Simple artillery has played a vital role in the war, and its ability to produce large quantities is now a priority. Russia has been tapping into its vast Soviet stockpiles of artillery.
Berzina said that NATO countries are now increasing military production.
“I think the key takeaway is that quantity still matters,” said Andris Banka, who studies Baltic security issues and NATO at the University of Greifswald in Germany.
“You need actual military muscle,” he said. “Russian military offensive has demonstrated that the number of troops, even if they are badly equipped, still matters a great deal.”
Banka explained that in the event of an invasion of the Baltics, NATO’s strategy was to send reinforcements that would retake territory. Banka said that thinking has now changed.
Military armored vehicles take part in the Baltops 2024 exercise in the Baltic Sea region, June 16, 2024. Some 9,000 troops from 20 NATO countries have been participating this month in military exercises in the Baltic Sea region, which has become strategically sensitive following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Cameron C. Edy, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa Public Affairs via AP“Ukrainians have shown how important the first 24 to 48 hours — I think they were absolutely crucial in Ukraine being able to stand,” he said. “… and I think this is the key takeaway that you need to resist from the first moments. You cannot just wait for someone to arrive.”
Banka said that other aspects of Baltic defense policy have shifted.
Last year, Latvia made military conscription mandatory for men. Bolstering border security, and procuring missile defense systems, is a priority.
Now, NATO has more troops rotating through the Baltic countries.
German Bundeswehr soldiers stand next to a German army armored military vehicle during the Lithuanian-German division-level international military exercise ‘Grand Quadriga 2024’ at a training range in Pabrade, north of the capital Vilnius, Lithuania on, May 29, 2024. ‘Grand Quadriga 2024’, a wide-scale exercise of the German Bundeswehr that rehearses moving two divisions from the central part of Europe to eastern. Over 3 thousand German troops and military equipment has been moved to Lithuania.Mindaugas Kulbis/APThe United States, as one of the leading members of the alliance, is also paying close attention to developments in Ukraine.
“At the end of a conflict in Ukraine, however, it concludes, we are going to have a very big Russia problem,” said General Christopher Cavoli, head of US-European Command and NATO’s supreme allied commander, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum.
“We are going to have a situation where Russia is reconstituting its force, is located on the borders of NATO, is led by largely the same people as it is right now, is convinced that we are the adversary and is very, very angry.”
Cavoli said that to deter further Russian aggression, NATO allies must learn from Ukraine.
And he said that the “chronic threat of Russia” will remain among NATO’s top priorities.
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The loss of life in Gaza has been profound. There have been some efforts to count the victims amid the violence and lack of access for foreign journalists and aid workers.
The number of people who have died in Gaza has been turned into a subject of fierce debate. The travel restrictions and communication blackouts have contributed to the difficulty of tracking casualty numbers.
The Gaza Health Ministry estimates the war has killed 39,000 Palestinians in Gaza. With Hamas overseeing the ministry, Israeli authorities have questioned the data. Now, a study by the independent British research group Airwars, led by Joe Dyke, sheds light on the matter.
“In this particular case, we looked only at the first 17 days of the war, which was the period to which the first Ministry of Health list related to” Dyke explained to The World’s host, Marco Werman.
He said that by using an open-source techniques — such as when a family member posts on a Facebook group that their family member was killed, etc. — they found about 3,000 full names from those first 17 days. Of those, around 2,300 had corresponding names on the Ministry of Health list.
“What that tells you, essentially, is that the Ministry of Health list is largely reliable, and also that Palestinians posting online were not exaggerating the civilian harm, at least in that particular period of time.”
Marco Werman: As you said, this was specifically a study of the numbers provided by the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza during the first 17 days of war in October. As the casualties grew over the next nine months or so of war, the rest of the death toll, was that extrapolated?Joe Dyke: So, we’re very careful about what we doing and don’t conclude from this study. What we were trying to do is look specifically at that first list. And I think the evidence shows that since then, the hospitals in Gaza have basically collapsed, and it’s due to the war.
And so, this process at the beginning of the war was — all of the names were identified at the morgues. Those morgues were, a lot of them became active fighting grounds, a lot of them, the Israelis took over a number of the hospitals. There were also a lot of places that, essentially, no longer operate as morgues. I think five of the eight that were originally doing it are no longer doing it.
So, everybody accepts that the information is now less reliable than it was eight, nine months ago. So, really what we were trying to do was assess the reliability of that system at the beginning of the war.Tell us more about the method you use to establish that reliability, like how you made these determinations.Our Arabic-language team are specialists in documentation of civilian harm. What they do is they basically will begin by seeing that there has been a public allegation of civilian harm in a particular instance. So, somebody, maybe a teacher posting saying a family member has been killed or whatever. And then, they will gather everything that there is about that specific incident, and we’ll put it together into one piece of online published information with everything that we have.
A lot of families have then been posting the list of their family members that have been killed, because many Palestinian families have diaspora across the world. And then, we take those names and then cross-check them with the list produced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health. So, our process was completely independent. And then, at the end, we do a cross-check.And are you distinguishing between civilians and combatants or not?We are only looking at cases where there are civilians harmed. So if, for example, there were 12 militants killed but no reports of civilian harm, our researchers would not document it, because that’s not what we focus on. But there are quite a few cases in our archive of, for example, a Hamas militant is killed alongside multiple members of his family who, you know, you can argue about the legality of that, but they are clearly civilian status, right?
So, then, we have a case that’s highlighted in the study of a senior Hamas militant who was killed alongside 18 members of his family. And we would reference that in the report and make it clear in the incident that one of the people who was killed was not a civilian, and the others were believed to be civilians.Why did you limit your investigation to the first three weeks of the war between Israel and Hamas?Frankly, it’s a resource thing. Each one of these incidents goes through five levels of review. So, each incident takes between — depending on how complicated it is — it can take several weeks, if not months to go through those different layers of review.
If you look on the website, we have 4,500 incidents that we have monitored, meaning, somebody has said there was an allegation of a civilian killed here, but only 550 of those have been published. And we intend to, over the next several years, continue to go through those.
But essentially, we’re working chronologically. So, most of what we’re doing is from October and November.So, for journalists, as you know, being able to quantify things like numbers of dead in a war, it’s important, even though on the human scale, one life is everything. One life is a tragedy, a million is a statistic, as the old saying goes.
What do you think, though, about what these numbers tell us?I think they tell you two main things. One is that what Palestinians are posting online is to be believed, and that families and people who are posting about their suffering — and this is true in Gaza, it’s also true in Syria, is also true in Ukraine, it’s also true wherever — is that these people need to be listened to and their voices need to be listened to and included in terms of the human cost of war, in general.
And then, on this specific case, I think it tells you that that level of matching tells you that there was a relatively rigorous process at the beginning of the war, at least, and that the human cost of this war will take a long, long time to work out, but that it is on a scale of something that we have not seen in a number of years.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity
Related: ‘Nowhere in Gaza is safe,’ aid worker says
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It’s hard to tell that a quarter of Venezuela’s population has left the country in recent years. In the capital city Caracas, buses are full of people, motorbike taxis and delivery drivers fill the roads and street vendors offer everything from fresh produce to manicures.
There are recent signs that the economy is bouncing back — but only at a surface level.
After experiencing one of the most catastrophic and long-lasting economic collapses in modern history, most Venezuelans still live in poverty. Many are hoping that this Sunday’s presidential election brings change. It’s the first time that President Nicolás Maduro is facing a serious challenge.
Patricia Moreno, a 35-year-old nurse, quit her job at a public hospital because her salary was only about $3 a month.
This is the average monthly salary of health professionals, teachers, university professors and many public employees.
Moreno sells makeup, food and jewelry at a stand on a congested street, where she said she makes about $150 a month on a good day.
But she would need three times that amount simply to feed her family of four, according to the Venezuelan Finance Observatory.
So, she relies on free bags of food distributed by the government and remittances from her sister, who migrated to Colombia five years ago.
In the low-income neighborhood of La Vega, resident Miriam Fernandez, a domestic worker, had a femur surgery. She was required to provide all the supplies, including gloves, syringes, medicine and anesthesia. The procedure cost hundreds of dollars that she was lucky to get from her daughter, who lives in Perú.Marcos Valverde/The WorldIt’s the story of millions of Venezuelans, economist Omar Zambrano said.
“The Venezuelan economy experienced a decline process so lasting and deep that the economy reduced its size up to 80%,” Zambrano explained.
Venezuela was once one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America. Vast oil reserves allowed the government to develop infrastructure, respected universities, a decent public health system and a middle class.
But it was still a very unequal nation, which led to the rise of former socialist President Hugo Chávez. Taking advantage of high oil revenues, Chávez organized a series of social programs that benefited millions of people, while centralizing the government’s power in the presidency. He quickly became a charismatic, polarizing and messianic figure until he died of cancer in 2013. He transferred his political capital to Nicolás Maduro, who narrowly won a controversial election.
Dayana Cañizales, a retired nurse, complains about her pension being only about $4 a month. Seven members of her family have moved abroad and send her remittances.Marcos Valverde/The WorldA combination of bad policies, rampant corruption, low oil prices and economic sanctions left the country in ruins.
A couple of years ago, the government relaxed some price and exchange controls, which Zambrano said allowed for slight economic growth.
Now, the problem is not a lack of medicine or food. In Caracas, dozens of supermarkets, restaurants and boutiques have opened up. But only a small fraction of the population can afford to buy anything.
“The Venezuelan economy has become this sort of very small economy based on commercial services of imported origin,” Zambrano said. “And the retail sector is very small and relatively unproductive, so it can’t employ a lot of people, and pays low wages.”
Growth is not just limited in terms of economic sectors. It’s also limited to urban areas, especially in Caracas.
Luis Campos says he’s loyal to the late President Hugo Chávez “until death,” so he is voting for President Nicolás Maduro.Marcos Valverde/The WorldIn western Venezuela, university professor Angela Henao said her state of Merida has experienced daily power outages lasting up to nine hours.
Shortly after she bought a generator, the city ran out of gas. She and other colleagues would pick up teachers and students and bring them to class.
But with no transportation, electricity or internet service, students stopped attending their classes. So, Henao moved to Caracas, where power outages are less common.
A truck distributes drinks to supporters of President Nicolás Maduro at his campaign closure event.Marcos Valverde/The WorldMany people have high hopes for change after the upcoming presidential election.
After the main opposition leader María Corina Machado was banned from running, the opposition managed to unite behind a surrogate candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, a 74-year-old former diplomat.
Machado is campaigning for González Urrutia, who is ahead in the polls. But it’s unclear if Maduro will recognize a defeat.
María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia at the campaign closure event in Caracas, Venezuela.Courtesy of Edmundo González Urrutia’s campaignAnother issue is the lack of independent media in Venezuela. This, coupled with other signs of the country’s crumbling democracy, is causing many to move abroad.
“I’m waiting to see what happens on Sunday, and if nothing changes, I’m going abroad, because I won’t believe there’s any democracy left in my country,” said Angel Vizcaya, a journalism student.
A recent poll shows that as many as one-third of Venezuelans would consider migrating if the country’s authoritarian leader is given another six years in power.
An unlevel playing fieldPresident Nicolás Maduro has pledged to hold a free and fair election. But his government has control over democratic institutions, the military, the media and the oil industry, which is Venezuela’s main source of income.
“He has used all this power to try to tilt the election in his favor, and this is problematic,” said Carlos Medina, head of the Venezuelan Electoral Observatory.
Cody Campos and his husband Leandro Viloria campaigned in favor of socialist presidents Chávez and Maduro for years. But they have turned in favor of the opposition after a number of government officials made homophobic and transphobic comments. Marcos Valverde/The WorldNot only has Maduro’s government disqualified the main opposition figure from the July 28 election, it has also arrested dozens of opposition campaign staffers and volunteers this year. That includes Machado’s security chief, who was her closest aide as she drove across the country campaigning.
Machado has been barred from leaving Venezuela and boarding domestic flights. She has traveled the country by land, holding massive and emotional campaign rallies in which she has promised to reunite the families separated by migration.
For Maduro’s final campaign event on July 25, thousands of supporters from across the country were transported in buses paid for by the government.
Buses brought people from all over Venezuela to Maduro’s campaign closure event in Caracas, Venezuela.Marcos Valverde/The WorldGiant billboards showing Maduro’s face can be found all over in the main roads and highways of Caracas — but none can be seen of the opposition candidate.
In the weeks leading up to the election, Maduro offered special bonuses for public employees and launched a social media campaign to win the public over, appearing on TikTok and at rallies dancing, singing and posing for selfies.
There’s a lot of uncertainty about the outcome of the election.
“We are in a situation in which both sides think they can win, and whatever result is announced, will be disputed by the other side,” said David Smilde, a professor of sociology at Tulane University, who researches Venezuela.
Maduro already said that if he doesn’t win, there will be bloodshed and a fratricidal war. It’s unclear if he would try to retain power. But in the streets, there seems to be little appetite for protests.
“The willingness to protest is very low because people are not willing to risk themselves that way after seeing repression in previous protests,” Smilde said. So, it’s not clear exactly what would happen.”
Marcos Valderde contributed to this report from Caracas, Venezuela.
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While crossing northern India on foot, National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek slogged down a muddy path in the state of Rajasthan, accompanied by his walking partner and a donkey named Raju.
Traveling this way allowed Salopek a window into the stories others don’t typically hear from the world’s most populous country. It’s all being documented in a project called Out of Eden Walk.
Donkey paradise: Raju at rest in the Chambal region.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkThe World’s Carolyn Beeler caught up with Salopek to hear more about what he learned along the way.
Carolyn Beeler: So we are, of course, talking with you about your walk along the path of human migration, where we’re a bit behind, I suppose. So, you walked through India in 2018? Tell us a bit about that.Paul Salopek: I had never been to India before. I’ve been all over the world as a foreign correspondent, but India was a huge place I’d never set foot in. So it was brand new and it was dizzying. In India, the route I took across the north was almost 2,000 miles long, almost 4,000 km. And it took me more than a year. And it was a cosmos of villages. It was just village after village after village, through a mostly rural landscape. It was extraordinary.You say mostly rural. So, you’re walking through a lot of farmland in northwestern India, in Punjab, and you wrote about the Green Revolution there, which transformed farming. You say, though, that it is a double-edged sword. Tell me about that.Yeah, the Green Revolution, you know, if people know anything about it, it’s a positive connotation. And as it should be. I mean, it’s basically kept billions of human beings alive in our lifespan. In India alone, when this technology was pioneered, you know, decades ago, the output, the cultural output of India, was quadrupled, and they became self-sufficient in food production. They’re even exporting food products. But it’s double-edged in the sense that it comes at a very steep environmental cost that was never really truly calculated back then.So the Green Revolution used fertilizers and other inputs plus irrigation. Are those two of the main things?Massive, massive numbers of water pumps that are motorized, just sucking the water up out of these fossil reservoirs. This is water coming down out of the Himalayan mountains, which is sometimes, you know, ancient.A commuter zips by a kos minar — a 500-year-old stone distance marker jutting from the lush fields of Punjab in northern India. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Arati Kumar Rao/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkSo those aquifers are being drained, you say. Is that impacting drinking water supplies for people?In an extraordinary way. I had a walking partner, Arati Kumar-Rao, who’s an environmental photographer in India, and she knows these issues inside and out. And she told me, “Paul, this issue of the water crisis in India, which affects 600 million Indians — that’s almost half the population — is so huge that nobody can kind of look at it squarely.” Nobody can get their arms around it. It’s just gigantic, it’s colossal.And so what’s happening to villages? Do people have to walk farther to get water? What is the bottom line?I mean, it’s both rural and urban because, you know, aquifers don’t distinguish between urban and rural populations. They flow under everybody. And if you start pumping those down, in some cases more than 30 meters, more than 100 feet in one generation, not just the water is going away, but it’s changing its chemical nature. Some of the wells become toxic as they’re exposed to new oxygenated minerals. And we’re talking cyanides, fluorides making the drinking water poison for people.Your route took you through an area dominated by a group known as the Bishnoi. Who are the Bishnoi?Yeah. So, as I’m walking through this kind of industrial, agricultural landscape, imagine big flat panes of grains that are water-thirsty crops that probably should not be grown there to begin with, heavily industrialized tractor traffic like crazy. My walking partners and I came upon this oasis of nature, a kind of natural landscape, the way Punjab used to look before it was turned under a mechanical plow. And it was a nature reserve set up by the Bishnoi people, who were basically Hinduism’s druids. It’s a sect that kind of took its cue from a Hindu saint who walked around in the 15th century saying that we need to stop harming nature. So, he advocated the building of water ponds for wild animals and the complete prohibition of hunting. And this group of people is still in India. There are about, I think, half a million or so still living in Punjab.You also write about something called cow dumping. What is that?When I visited this reserve of Bishnoi, just imagine kind of rural farmers… You can’t tell that they’re Bishnoi, right? They look like any other rural farmer in the Punjab. Except their nature is natural. It’s not transformed by mechanization. Now, there are at least 300 million cows in India. And Hinduism, you know, deems the cow sacred. And if you’re a good Hindu, you never kill the cow. You can get milk from it, but as it gets old and stops giving milk, your duty as a good Hindu is to take care of the cow until death. You feed it, nurture it and take care of it. And this is expensive if you’re a poor farmer. And especially with the rise of Hindu nationalism lately in India and cow protection societies, the Bishnoi are facing a huge cow-dumping epidemic because the local farmers see their little patch of nature as the best place to dump their cows, their hungry old cows. So there’s kind of a cow war going on in this part of the Punjab.Interesting. So, about 3,000 miles earlier in your walk around the path of human migration, you were in the Palestinian West Bank looking at olive groves. Olives are native to that part of the world in these arid regions. But suddenly, when you were walking through India, you came across olive trees on these experimental farms, trying to grow them in a place that they don’t usually. Tell me about that experiment.Government officials in India had gone on a tour of Israel and been impressed by olive groves and said, “Let’s try to grow these back in India.” And so they brought back thousands of trees. They brought back Israeli agronomists to kind of help them grow. They found soils that were identical. So, it all looked like a promising experiment to introduce olives to India as a cash crop, the problem being the weather; they forgot about the weather patterns. Olives need two to 300 hours of cold weather to bud, flower and produce fruit. And India doesn’t have that kind of cold weather. So the administrators of this little forgotten, kind of almost invisible olive grove experiment in India decided, “We don’t have fruit, let’s try leaves.” So they started trying to make the leaves into something that Indians do love and is familiar. And that’s tea. You know, Indians are mad tea drinkers. So, they started experimenting. They set up a lab and were making olive leaf tea.“I didn’t know what olives were before working here,” says Lali Mina (right), an olive leaf harvester at the experimental farm near Bassi. The leaves are used to make tea.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkAnd how did it taste?It was delicious.Did it taste like olives?Yes. It was like chopped-up dried olive leaves from the tree mixed with herbs like mint. And it had, like, a smoky undertone. It was fabulous. It makes me wonder. This is one of these cases like when I walk away from a story and, years later, look over my shoulder [and then] I wonder how they’re doing, I hope they’re doing great, selling olive tea like gangbusters.Subhankar Moulick offers a sampling of newly tested olive leaf teas.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkWe started our conversation about the negative side effects of more muscular intervention in nature, so, irrigation, fertilizers. And then we have this story of trying to grow olives where olives don’t grow. Did you take those at the moment as two parts of the same story?Yeah. It’s the globalization of agriculture, right? Look, there’s so many more of us than there used to be in my parents’ and our grandparents’ time that we have to try everything. There are all these experiments going on across the world. It’s amazing, really, that of how do we feed ourselves? How do we create crash crops to pull people out of poverty? But thousands of these experiments are going on around the world. 99.99% of us don’t know about them because we just consume the products, right? If they’re successful. So, that’s what walking does. Slowing down, this is a story that I would never probably have stumbled across had I been based in India as a conventional foreign correspondent. It’s too small. But as you note, this small example talks about global things. Big things, big ideas.Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.
Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonders of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a fourth Congressional address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday — unprecedented for a foreign leader.
Only former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was invited to address Congress three times over the course of his career.
Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. Before leaving on this trip, he said his goal in Washington would be to shore up bipartisan support. But his visit comes at a moment of high tension.
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers announced they would skip Netanyahu’s speech, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York, who called him “a war criminal.”
Meanwhile, protesters in Washington, DC, gathered to send a message to Netanyahu that he is not welcome because of the war in Gaza. Streets were closed downtown, and the police were out in force.
US Capitol police watch demonstrators marching outside of the US Capitol as they protest the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Capitol Hill, July 24, 2024, in Washington.Jose Luis Magana/APThe antiwar group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organized a sit-in inside the Cannon Building on Capitol Hill, where members of the House have their offices. The demonstration ended with 200 arrests, according to Capitol police.
“I personally appreciate the voices in America that have spoken out loudly against this genocidal war in Gaza,” said Mkhaimar Abusada about the protests. He is a Palestinian political scientist from Al-Azhar University in Gaza, and he fled to Cairo after the current war in Gaza began. His extended family, though, is still in the Gaza Strip, where he said the situation “is beyond catastrophe.”
Estimates say nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since last October, with around half of the territory’s buildings destroyed or damaged.
Demonstrators march outside of the US Capitol as they protest the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Capitol Hill, July 24, 2024, in Washington.Jose Luis Magana/APPeople in Gaza at this point want a ceasefire, and when the war is over, most of them want the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, to come back to run Gaza, Abusada said.
Since last fall, the Biden administration has been pushing for the US-financed Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza. Some Israeli opposition leaders agree.
But Netanyahu has publicly ruled that out. “I’m not aware of any serious discussions by Netanyahu and his coalition government on the day after,” Abusada said. “Netanyahu doesn’t even want to discuss this issue.”
Rabbi Gilad Kariv, a member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, from the Labor Party, said that Netanyahu’s refusal is a strategic mistake.
“We believe that we need to work together to have a political dialogue with the more moderate forces in the Palestinian Authority,” Kariv said, adding that it’s also a good example of how the prime minister has put Israel’s security at risk by teaming up with coalition members from the extreme religious right.
A demonstrator protesting near the Capitol during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, July 24, 2024.Matt Slocum/AP“They want us to go back to Gaza and to control the daily life of 2 million Palestinians,” Kariv said. “This is a terrible vision. It will isolate Israel totally from the international community and will prevent Israel from dealing with the real strategic threats.”
Kariv, along with Israelis across the political spectrum, largely agree with Netanyahu about the threat posed by Iran and its Middle Eastern proxies — a narrative that Netanyahu has been pushing since long before the Oct. 7 attack.
“Israel today is being challenged by a pro-jihadist regional alliance led by Iran,” Kariv said. “Iran is coming closer and closer to meet a nuclear capacity.”
The World’s host, Carolyn Beeler, discussed the situation and Netanyahu’s address further with Matthew Bell. Click the player above to listen to the full conversation.
Related: ‘Nowhere in Gaza is safe,’ aid worker says
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On the narrow main road in the Japanese mountain village of Nanmoku, about 80 miles northwest of the capital, Tokyo, a street sign warns drivers to watch out for older people crossing the street.
Workers in town, from road maintenance crews to the shopkeeper at the gift shop, appear well past traditional retirement age.
In the oldest country in the world, Nanmoku is known as the oldest village. More than two-thirds of its roughly 1,500 residents are over age 65.
A night-time drive through town reveals the glut of abandoned houses.
When Nanmoku was incorporated in 1955, it housed more than 10,000 people.James Honeycutt/The World“The houses with people living in them have lights on,” said Satomi Oigawa, the village migration coordinator, through an interpreter. “Houses without lights are [abandoned].”
The junior high school in town was shuttered in March, and the students shifted to the elementary school building. Twenty students study there now, and high schoolers have to travel outside the village.
Nanmoku’s junior high school was shuttered in March. Students have to travel outside the village now.James Honeycutt/The WorldWhen Nanmoku was incorporated in 1955, it housed more than 10,000 people.
“When I was a child, there were a lot of people in the village, a lot of people worked in forestry,” lifelong resident Takayo Ichikawa, 75, remembered. “It was bustling, it was a fun time to be living here.”
The once-thriving forestry and agricultural sectors in Nanmoku started shedding jobs years ago. National trends, including low birthrates and a migration of young people to the country’s larger cities, have driven down the population.
“Now,” she said, “I feel lonely sometimes because there aren’t many people here.”
Nanmoku’s government is trying to keep the village alive by attracting new, younger residents.
Takayo Ichikawa (left), Miyoko Asakawa (center) and Yoshiko Kanai (right) grew up in Nanmoku, and have watched it change over the years.James Honeycutt/The WorldThe mayor has opened two new nursing homes in recent years, partly to provide jobs for working-age people. Young people can also do three-year stints in Nanmoku in a government community revitalization corps.
“All of Japan’s population is shrinking, so it’s unrealistic to think we could increase the population of just this village,” said Jin Takayanagi, who’s part of a three-person team within the village government tasked with attracting new residents.
Instead, Takayanagi said the village is just trying to reduce the average age from more than two-thirds over 65 to about 40%.
“If we have children, young adults and seniors, we’ll have three generations working together, and our village can survive,” Takayanagi said.
Nanmoku, like other Japanese municipalities, is advertising its abandoned houses online to attract buyers interested in cheap properties. It’s Satomi Oigawa’s job to connect with people who express interest in those homes and show them properties they might be interested in. She also plays up the considerable natural beauty of Nanmoku, including a deep gorge where the Nanmoku River cascades in a frothy waterfall.
“It’s very rich in nature and [has] very friendly people,” Oigawa said, standing beside the waterfall.
Nanmoku, Japan, is known for its considerable natural beauty, including a deep gorge where the Nanmoku River cascades in a frothy waterfall.James Honeycutt/The WorldOne of Oigawa’s success stories is Manna Kobayashi, a 20-something-year-old who’d been living in a nearby city and found out about Nanmoku after doing a Google search for old houses in the prefecture. She wanted to open a short-term vacation rental and landed on a well-maintained traditional Japanese house in Nanmoku.
“I came here and found out I really like it,” she said.
Kobayashi decorated the house with a mixture of traditional and modern touches and started renting it out in December.
“It’s really fun to live here,” she said. “You have a lot of human interaction that you don’t get in the cities. Like, neighbors always come to visit me or teach me how to grow vegetables. That kind of thing is always happening here.”
The village even fixed up the kitchen in Kobayashi’s rental.
“Most of our abandoned homes need renovations,” said village official Jin Takayanagi. “Renovations cost money, and we want to attract young people to live here. They don’t necessarily have money. So, as a village, we renovate one to three houses per year.”
So far, efforts to attract new residents have yielded modest results. Last year, several people moved to the village, Takaynagi said, but about 100 residents died.
City officials in Nanmoku, Japan, are trying to help renovate homes to attract younger residents.James Honeycutt/The WorldTakayanagi said the village has already decided not to consolidate with any nearby towns but wouldn’t guess what the future will bring for Nanmoku.
“The basic aim of our office is to keep people healthy and living happily,” he said. “That’s our goal.”
For Miyoko Asakawa, 78, life in Nanmoku is happy. She’s close with a group of women she’s been friends with for roughly half a century. They have tea together once a week, and play volleyball and softball together sometimes.
“I know a lot of people in this village, so that makes my life very rich,” she said.
Her home, a century-old wood-frame house with ceilings blackened from a traditional indoor fire pit, is emptier than it once was: It’s just her son and her there now, instead of the nine members of her extended family.
But the natural beauty of Nanmoku remains unchanged, she said, and the nightingales she can hear in her garden still sing beautifully.
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In downtown Florianopolis, a crowd of people walk back to work after their lunch hour. But some are distracted with thoughts of Paris later this week.
“Yeah, we can’t wait,” said Leticia Feller. She’s a former Muay Thai boxer with short hair and contagious enthusiasm.
Downtown Florianopolis, Brazil.Michael Fox/The World“I’m really rooting for the volleyball girls; Rayssa Leal in skateboarding, and Rebeca Andrade is the favorite in gymnastics. She’s shown the best of what a Brazilian can do,” said Feller with a laugh. “… and she’s making Simone Biles scared. She’s making her scared.”
Here’s why:
In the world gymnastics championships last year in Antwerp, Belgium, 25-year-old Rebeca Andrade, who is 4-foot-9 inches, beat Simone Biles in the vault. Andrade took silver in the all-around, placing just after Biles.
“Rebeca is like a ballerina, mixing strength and smoothness. The explosive power of an eagle with the elegance of a swan,” said Juliana Pizani, the head of the Department of Physical Education at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. “While Simone Biles is thunder and storm. A force of nature. Defying the laws of gravity.”
Rebeca Andre doing a routine at the Brazilian Artistic Gymnastics Trophy finals on June 6, 2024, at Arena Carioca in Barra Olympic Park, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Mariana Raphael/MEspPizani says she is “crazy” for this matchup of two incredible gymnasts with very different styles.
Rebeca Andrade has come a long way.
She and her seven siblings were raised by their single mother in a poor neighborhood in São Paulo. She began training at the age of four. That, 2003, was the year Brazilian gymnast Daiane dos Santos took gold at the World Artistic Gymnastic Championships in Anaheim.
Dos Santos’s win was the first time a Brazilian or South American had won an event at the world championship. It was a turning point for Brazilian gymnastics.
“I always told my students that Daiane flew. I told them that she had springs in her feet,” said Mitzy Morales, a longtime gymnastics coach from Daiane dos Santos’s home state of Rio Grande do Sul. “After Daiane, there was an explosion of so many kids wanting to do gymnastics. She helped to really propel the sport. She was a springboard for the sport.”
Daiane dos Santos of Brazil competes in the floor exercise during the women’s gymnastics qualifying round at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Aug. 15, 2004.Kevork Djansezian/APDaiane dos Santos was an inspiration for Rebeca Andrade, too.
There’s this incredible news report from 2009 when dos Santos and another gymnast from the Olympic team went to train with young girls in São Paulo. Among them was 10-year-old Rebeca Andrade, in a pink gymnast’s outfit.
“I was trying to do some things, and they taught me,” she told the camera.
Rebeca Andrade would go on to win gold medals at international championships and gold and silver medals at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Rebeca Andrade, of Brazil, poses with her gold medal for vault and silver medal for all-round in artistic gymnastics at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Aug. 2, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan.Ashley Landis/AP/File“I really wanted to be an Olympic champion. I really wanted to have a medal, but I got so much more than this,” she said in an interview a few years ago. “I got so much love from the people. I received kindness and more faith. And I hope I gave more faith to others that they, too, can achieve their dreams.”
Professor Juliana Pizani said Andrade is vital for the success of Brazil’s Olympic women’s team.
“She does really well under pressure,” said Pizani. “So, she lifts the morale on the team and serves as a model of dedication and discipline for the younger athletes.”
She is an inspiration across Brazil.
A group of young girls are training at a Gym-X gym in a working-class neighborhood of Florianopolis. They’re beginners, but their coach, Ariele Gomes Magalhães, says they all have someone to look up to.
Young girls train at a Gym-X in Florianopolis in hopes of becoming the next Rebeca Andrade. Michael Fox/The World“They constantly say, ‘Rebeca Andrade can do that jump,’” she said. “They are constantly talking about her and others on the Brazilian team.”
Andrade has faced adversity. She’s bounced back from numerous surgeries on her foot and knees. She has terrible eyesight. And she’s Black in a sport that white athletes traditionally dominate.
Ariele Gomes Magalhães, a gymnastics coach at Gym-X in Florianopolis, Brazil, said that young girls look up to Rebeca Andrade and constantly say, “Rebeca Andrade can do that jump.”Michael Fox/The WorldThat’s another similarity between Andrade, Simone Biles and Daiane dos Santos. They are all incredible Black athletes who have battled prejudice to get where they are.
Daiane dos Santos has spoken out about the racial discrimination she faced, particularly early in her career.
Juliana Pizani says racism is a reality in gymnastics, like other sports, but the increasing visibility of important Black athletes is helping to challenge the stereotypes and inspire new generations of gymnasts.
They are more than challenging the stereotypes. They are breaking them.
Most of the women on Brazil’s gymnastics team heading to Paris this year are Black. And with Rebeca Andrade in the lead, they’re reaching for the gold.
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The mastic growers of southern Chios go out to the trees in the early morning before the sun rises.
In those mornings, the air is cool — fragrant with a piney, almost medicinal, smell.
The domesticated versions of wild Mediterranean shrubs are the world’s sole source of gum mastic — a clear resin that humans have used for at least 2,500 years. Today, some growers are trying to keep up that tradition.
To this day, the drops are still gathered by hand, now with the help of a headlamp.
“In the light, the mastic is glowing like diamonds!” gushed Poppy Voulgari, who has cultivated mastic trees with her husband, Nikos, for the last 12 years.
A clear mastic resin drops from a severed branch, in a grove near Pyrgi, Greece. Most mastic is gathered from small incisions made in the bark.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldIn the middle of the afternoon, the sun beat down like a menace. As Nikos Voulgari demonstrated how he harvests mastic, it was quickly apparent that this industry couldn’t really be automated. That could be one reason why it hasn’t changed much over the last two centuries.
In poetry, the gum mastic drops are known as the “Tears of Chios.” This name refers to their outward appearance during the July harvest and an old story in which the Greek Orthodox Saint, Isidore of Chios, was killed by a Roman naval commander near the mastic trees. When he died, the story goes, the mastic “wept” fragrant tears.
Nikos Voulgari prepares a mastic shrub for harvest on his land in Pyrgi, Greece. He and his wife, Poppy, moved from Athens to Chios and purchased the grove 12 years ago, hoping to join a profitable trade in the wake of Greece’s financial crisis.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldAfter clearing the area below the shrub, Nikos covered the ground with white marble power in a circle around the base of the trunk. This creates a clean surface for the mastic drops.
He then went in with a blunt, metal tool to cut into the bark. Nikos, an artist, has also created a more efficient, serrated knife for his work. He calls his creation a Greek translation of “The Embroiderer.”
Within minutes, clear drops of resin formed on the cuts.
Almost immediately after making incisions in the bark, clear drops of resin appear on the shrub. After dropping to the ground, the Voulgaris wait up to 20 days before harvesting the hardened mastic. It’s then cleaned, processed and packaged for sale.Durrie Bouscaren/The World“A mastic tree has veins, like a body,” Nikos said in Greek, as Poppy translated. “If you know where they are, you know where to cut.”
The sticky, translucent sap oozed out and glistened in the sunlight — the same resin, once prescribed by Hippocrates for digestive problems and colds and the stuff the first photographers used to preserve early negatives. It was also the world’s first chewing gum, prized by the Ottoman imperial palace, and which still lends its chewiness to booza, an ice cream popular in the Levant.
It takes up to 20 days for the resin drops to harden on the ground. That’s when the Voulgaris gather the mastic. It’s then cleaned, processed and sold all over the world.
Most elements of the mastic harvest are difficult to automate. But Nikos Voulgari uses a leaf blower to help clear the ground beneath the shrubs to prepare the area for harvest.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldEach mastic tree can only produce about a third of a pound of mastic every year, which is used in products like toothpaste, natural medicines and aromatic liqueurs. Botanists have struggled to recreate mastic production anywhere outside of the hot, dry microclimate of southern Chios. For some reason, the resin never flows with the same clarity and taste anywhere else.
“The cultivation has remained traditional,” explained Maria Damala, sales director of the Gum Mastic Growers’ Association, a mandatory cooperative of mastic growers on Chios.
Damala said one of her biggest challenges is getting more growers into the business.
“Actually, the production is not enough to capture the global demand,” she added.
Maria Damala, sales director for the Gum Mastic Grower’s Association, a mandatory cooperative, stands on the balcony of the organization in Chios, Greece.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldThe Voulgaris joined the mastic trade in the wake of Greece’s 2009 debt crisis, when life in the capital, Athens, felt untenable, and they wanted to start a family.
“I wanted to raise my kids in a safe place,” Poppy Voulgari recalled. “So, we closed our store and we came to Pyrgi. We bought some mastic trees, and we became mastic producers.”
Time almost stands still in the hillside town of Pyrgi — a cluster of whitewashed stone homes etched with black-and-white geometric designs. Triangles are engraved on the homes for a long life, daisies are under the balcony for luck and pots of basil are on the windowsills to keep out mosquitoes.
It’s the largest of the 24 remaining “mastic villages” of southern Chios — fortified towns built during a Genoan occupation in the 14th century. Many early residents carved their initials above their front doors, leaving a lasting signature.
At the café of Nikolaos Ioannis, visitors can taste pure mastic liqueur or try a Greek coffee flavored with mastic syrup.
Ioannis produces the syrup himself from mastic trees that he inherited from his family.
“It’s sour, but it has vitamins and it’s good for the stomach,” Ioannis said.
A mastic grove outside of Pyrgi, Greece, owned by residents nearby. During the July harvest season, the ground beneath each shrub is covered in white marble dust to catch the resin drops. Most families work in the groves in the early morning and late at night, avoiding the heat of the sun.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldLike his parents and grandparents before him, Ioannis works on his trees every morning. In the afternoons, he manages the café. His rhythm is dictated by the heat and a steady stream of mostly Turkish tourists who take the ferry to the island in the mornings.
Ioannis said his favorite part is caring for the baby mastic trees because he’s making something new for the next generation.
He smiled as he spoke about them, the same way he smiles when asked about his three kids. It takes about 15 years before a newly planted mastic shrub can produce a quality resin. But caring for them, making sure they’re established and happy, he said, brings him joy.
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A video online shows Brazilian table tennis star Bruna Alexandre defeating her competitor from Hungary during the World Table Tennis Games in South Korea earlier this year.
At one point, she’s 15 feet back from the table, and her opponent slams the ball at her, but Alexandre comes back to win the point.
This attitude of hard work and commitment is what stood out to her longtime coach, Alexandre Ghizi, from the moment he met her.
“She is an athlete who puts in a lot of hard work and dedication,” he said. “And it’s not easy doing what she did. She left home at 16 years old so she could exclusively focus on her training.”
This year, Alexandre will be the first Brazilian to compete in both the Olympics and the Paralympics in the same year. Alexandre, who lost her right arm to thrombosis when she was just 3 months old, is one of only a handful of people in the world who will have been in both competitions in the history of the Games.
Alexandre’s home state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, is one of the strongest for table tennis in the country. Teenage athletes practice at a municipal gym in the state capital, Florianopolis. They’re members of the Florianopolis Association of Table Tennis Players.
Their coach, Micael de Souza, is one of the top under-21 players in the country.
The Brazilian state of Santa Catarina is one of the country’s strongest populous for table tennis. Members of the Florianopolis Association of Table Tennis Players practice at a municipal gym daily.Michael Fox/The WorldIt’s not pingpong, de Souza said: “It’s not just a game. It’s really a sport. It’s a profession.”
Players practice daily after school for three to four hours — a similar regimen for Alexandre.
Table tennis players practice daily for three to four hours, following the likes of star player Bruna Alexandre.Michael Fox/The WorldGhizi said that when she was young, Alexandre lived next to the gymnasium in Criciuma where he coached table tennis. Her brother played.
Ghizi handed Alexandre her first racket. Within a few years, she was already turning heads.
When she was interviewed by a local TV outlet 14 years ago, Alexandre had won over a hundred medals at different competitions. She was only 15 years old.
“I lost my arm when I was little, but for me, it’s normal,” she said. “Just having one arm isn’t the end of the world. You just have to continue. You have to be a warrior and fight.”
Bruna Alexandre during a game.Gaël Marziou/FlickrShe’s since fought her way to Brazilian championships and top medals at Paralympic Games.
Marcelo Haiachi, a professor at the Federal University of Sergipe and a Paralympic coach, spoke about her from Brazil’s Paralympic training headquarters in São Paulo.
He said that most people don’t understand that you have to do twice the work to classify for both the Olympics and Paralympics. There’s two different circuits, with different competitions all across the world. Just the schedule itself is grueling.
Table tennis players.Michael Fox/The WorldAlexandre is ranked second in the world for the Paralympics. But she’s not expected to medal at the Olympics. There are other Brazilians who may. Haiachi said that’s not the point.
“It really doesn’t matter if she wins a medal,” Haiachi said. “It’s just the fact that she is there, with her name, making history as a disabled Brazilian woman using sport to improve her life.”
Back at the gym in Florianopolis, 15-year-old table tennis athlete Artur Lunardelli is training hard. He said what impressed him most about Alexandre was her serve.
Artur Lunardelli, 15, a table tennis player, trained hard at the sport and said that Bruna Alexandre’s serve is impressive.Michael Fox/The World“Usually, you need the other hand to toss the ball up in the air, but she does it by tossing the ball up with her racket,” he said. “It’s much harder.”
De Souza said Alexandre and others like her are an inspiration.
Many table tennis players take inspiration from Bruna Alexandre’s trajectory. It motivates them to train harder.Michael Fox/The World“Here in Brazil, everyone is so obsessed with soccer,” he said. “So, when athletes like Bruna reach the podium on the world stage, it really helps to grow our sport here in Brazil. They really help to spread the word.”
And that is exactly what she will do in Paris over the next two months.
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Russian state media went into super drive after US President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he will not be running for reelection.
Kremlin-backed news channels took jabs at the United States, amplifying the divisive messaging already pervasive in American election coverage. One Russian news anchor declared that Biden had “finally” left the race and that his announcement is only “bringing more turmoil to his party.”
Biden’s announcement elicited a burst of mockery in Russian state media, with pieces arguing that American democracy is illegitimate and “Putinism,” with its stability and strength, is far superior. But analysts say that these messages reveal much more about Russian politics than the US election.
The rhetoric on Russian political talk shows has been even harsher than that of state media outlets.
During a segment from a program hosted by prominent Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, he and a group of pundits laughed at a montage of Biden gaffes.
Solovyov then translated a recent disparaging social media post about Biden by former US President Donald Trump on Truth Social, and then went on to mock US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now a candidate in the race.
“The dominance of state media in Russia is so overwhelming that even if people don’t buy it completely, it is the main image that they have of the Western world now,” said Francis Scarr, a journalist who follows Russian state media for BBC Monitoring. “It forms the overwhelming picture of what the rest of the world looks like.”
He added, “It’s very typical of Russian state TV to try and discredit Western leaders, and contrast them negatively to [Russian President] Vladimir Putin. Often, Western leaders are ridiculed, or they’re presented as being incompetent and not having the kind of statesman-like qualities that Putin is presented as having.”
Scarr explained that Russian media outlets don’t see Biden or Harris as democratically elected politicians. They are viewed as a laughing stock, or in more extreme cases, as malicious figures who pose a threat Russia.
This messaging goes beyond pundits on political talk shows, also coming from senior Kremlin officials.
“The world is on the verge of catastrophe because of the Biden administration,” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said during a Sunday evening talk show. She blamed the US for starting the war in Ukraine and said the US should be sanctioned for providing Ukraine with military aid.
Scarr said that these messages often begin as TV propaganda and then are later amplified by officials.
“What we’re seeing is that foreign policy is not determined by the Russian foreign ministry — it comes from the Kremlin,” he said. “And the Russian foreign ministry, in many ways, is just there as almost an extension of Kremlin propaganda to denigrate rivals and states that the Kremlin sees as hostile.”
Sometimes Putin even chimes in himself. He’s commented about the US election on several occasions. In March, he said that the US electoral system is not democratic and has become “a laughing stock and shameful before the entire world.”
He went on to say that Russia has no preference for a specific US presidential candidate and will work with the candidate that voters elect.
However, other Russians outside of the Kremlin’s sphere of influence take a different view. Exiled Russian opposition politician Mikhail Khodorkovsky said in a video posted on social media, “America is a real democratic country, with age-old traditions and institutions.”
He praised the fact that the US, unlike Russia, has frequent transitions of power, suggesting that Putin has overstayed his welcome. He said he wants Russians to take notice that Putin also has limits.
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In Namibia, a plant colloquially known as the encroaching bush is threatening the land with desertification. In addition, the country faces a growing housing shortage. MycoHAB, a nonprofit in Namibia, has found a solution to both problems for the price of one.
Chris Maurer is an architect behind MycoHAB, which aims to combat the housing crisis and climate change by researching and producing sustainable building materials.
The organization has found a process that can take the encroaching bush, use it as the substrate — like soil but for growing mushrooms — and use the mushrooms to feed people. Then, the waste material is used to build bricks for new houses.
Maurer spoke to The World’s co-host, Carolyn Beeler, to learn more.
Carolyn Beeler: So how does this material compare? This mix of the woody stuff from these invasive bushes and the, let’s say, roots of the mushrooms? How does that material compare to a traditional building material, like concrete for example, on strength and price and all those good things?Chris Maurer: It compares very well to concrete in terms of strength. The blocks that we make in Namibia have compressive strengths of around 6 megapascals, which is very similar to what concrete blocks are in that part of the world. The compression strength is just one type of characteristic that we look at in building materials. It’s also insulative. It tends to be fire-resistant and it’s sound-attenuating, so it can have all kinds of multifunctional effects.What are the downsides of this material, and what are the negatives?Well, I guess if you do compare it to concrete and other materials like that, you wouldn’t use this exposed to the elements the same way that you could some of those materials. The houses we’re building in Namibia now, we’re using a mud plaster to protect it from rain and things like that, very similar to wood construction. It can last forever. There’s lots of wood buildings that are centuries old. Biogenic material lasts a very long time if you protect it, but things like concrete are better for using underground in areas where it can become very wet or humid.So, you’ve built one of these homes so far, is that correct? And if so, describe what it looks like.Yeah. So, it’s made out of 900 or more of these blocks that we’ve made in Namibia. Each one of those blocks are about 10 kilograms each. So, this one very small house that we built sequestered 9 tons of carbon. It used 9 tons of encroaching bush and it made 3 tons of mushrooms in its production. It’s a very small house. It’s a one-bedroom, one-bath, but it’s basically a model for how we hope to go forward and scale this up to hundreds of homes, thousands of homes and, you know, one day millions of homes with this process.So, only one of these homes is standing so far. What are the challenges to scaling up this approach to building fundraising?We’re currently funding to scale the process now. We’ve basically made this demonstration project in Namibia. It was a collaboration between my studio, Red House, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Bits and Atoms and Standard Bank Group, which funded this as part of their environmental and social governance program. Now that we’ve proven that it can be done, that you can take, encroach or push and turn it into food and housing in a vertically integrated process, we’re pulling in investors and doing this at industrial scale.And how does cost compare with these bricks to traditional building materials?Well, not to be too cheeky, but the materials are free, but we don’t sell them necessarily. At this point, we’re using the mushrooms, we’re selling those. And that’s basically going to be our revenue-generating process. And then, the building materials are going strictly toward humanitarian housing at this point. As I mentioned, this was started under an environmental social governance program with Standard Bank. And so, they are committed along with partners like the Shack Dwellers Federation and the Bio Brick Foundation to support housing for the nearly half of all Namibians that are living in informal settlements now.Now, what’s your ultimate goal? Looking down maybe 5-10 years, how do you hope this changes buildings and homes in Namibia?Well, I hope in Namibia and throughout the world that we’re using more of these bio fabrication functions because it can store carbon dioxide. And I want to see architecture start to become a solution for climate change, rather than a major part of the problem.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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In Lilongwe, Malawi, 24-year-old Cleo Jones recalls feeling more comfortable around girls than boys during childhood.
Jones came out as queer and nonbinary at the age of 15, a decision that was met with harsh rejection by their father and attacks and stigma from society, causing them to fall into periods of depression.
Since then, Jones has found a passion for helping others through community organizing. But one of their hardest challenges is a lack of access to health care.
“When you go to the hospital, especially for LGBTQ people, the discrimination starts from the gate,” they said.
Jones is among 3.5% of Malawi’s nearly 21 million people who identify as LGBTQ and who often face discrimination, even though the country’s constitution guarantees the right to health for all citizens regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Jones says they once visited a clinic in Lilongwe with a friend for an HIV test, but instead of medical care, they faced religious rhetoric and heckling.
“They wanted us to repent and say we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and personal savior. And because we said no, they never offered the services,” Jones said.
They left the clinic feeling bullied and dehumanized, even traumatized.
Avoiding treatmentThe United Nations has found that stigma and discrimination in health care settings around the world often lead to higher mental health risk and underutilization of HIV/AIDs treatment and prevention services for LGBTQ people.
Meanwhile, Malawi’s medical and nursing schools provide no training on health care for LGBTQ people, according to research done in 2016 by the Centre for the Development of People.
“Even the service providers themselves have no knowledge on how they can support [LGBTQ] members when they come to the facility,” said Maria Ngulube, the project lead at CEDEP. “So, there was discriminatory treatment, and lack of confidentiality, which deterred LGBTQ people from seeking the health services they require.’
She said what often contributes to this is health workers’ religious beliefs. She added that many of them feel conflicted.
“They feel when you are providing the services, it means you are encouraging same-sex relationships,” she explained.
Women protest against a sentence of 14 years in prison with hard labor given to two men in Malawi under Malawi’s anti-gay legislation, in the city of Cape Town, South Africa, May 20, 2010.Schalk van Zuydam/AP/File photoNgulube said there are now efforts to educate health professionals to recognize the differences in care. CEDEP has implemented a training program in four districts for nurses and medical professionals since 2017, training more than 300 health workers from public hospitals.
Because there are only a few public hospitals in Malawi, the majority of LGBTQ people end up trying to access health care at Christian-based facilities. And Ngulube said those facilities have refused to answer to groups like hers on how they are implementing inclusive health care.
“As a Christian, I believe that homosexuality is a sin,” said one Lilongwe-based nurse, who preferred to stay anonymous to avoid professional repercussions. “So, you see, it’s hard to care for someone living in sin. I also do not want my colleagues to think I support this lifestyle.”
The Christian Health Association of Malawi did not respond to interview requests by The World.
Facing discriminationIn the Area 9 neighborhood of Lilongwe, 25-year-old Connex Khomba, a transgender man, said he’s also faced his fair share of discrimination.
He is an only child, and when his mother passed away two years ago, family members banned him from the funeral.
“It still pains me till today because I never had the opportunity to send off my mom,” he said.
Connex Khomba, a transgender man in Malawi, struggles to access health care including gender-affirming therapies and procedures.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldKhomba’s mother died of cancer, so when cervical cancer awareness increased in Malawi, he decided to get screened along with another transgender friend.
“We went to the hospital. The only thing we got told is, ‘You are men, why are you in the queue with other women to get the service?’” he said.
Like many African countries, abortion is also illegal in Malawi, except to save the life of the pregnant person. This restriction means that most abortions, including those in cases of rape, incest or severe fetal anomalies, are not legally permitted.
“I am a trans man. If I fall pregnant today, then it is something that I do not want,” Khomba said. “If the law is stopping me from freely aborting, what future does the child have?”
This is compounded by the lack of LGBTQ-specific services. There are no hospitals in Malawi that offer hormonal therapy.
“But it’s a need. For me to conform with my body, I need this service” Khomba said.
This has compelled many people to look for these services underground.
But health experts warn that unregulated hormonal treatments can result in significant health risks like hormonal imbalances, organ damage and other severe side effects. Unregulated gender-affirming surgeries also carry a high risk of infection.
Legal hurdlesSame-sex relationships are criminalized in Malawi with a jail sentence of up to 14 years.
Malawi’s government jailed a couple in 2010 for holding a public same-sex wedding, which was later pardoned after an intervention by the United Nations.
The next president, Joyce Banda, promised legal reforms and placed a moratorium on arresting same-sex couples. But after she lost her re-election bid, the law is back in force.
Former Deputy President Joyce Banda, who declared she wanted to repeal Malawi’s laws against homosexual acts, attended a protest against abuse of women, in Blantyre, Malawi, on Jan. 20, 2012.Choko Chikondi/AP/File photoKhomba wants the current law repealed. He says that many LGBTQ people who are abused, both in hospitals and elsewhere, end up suffering in silence because they can’t seek legal recourse.
But that won’t be easy, says Ben Phiri, a legislator and leading voice on sexual and reproductive health issues in Malawi.
“I would have pushed this agenda, yes. But after an election, I would be home because the community would have voted me out,” he said.
Ben Phiri is a member of parliament in Malawi and president of the The Eastern and Southern African Parliamentary Caucus on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldForeign influenceMany argue that homosexuality is a foreign lifestyle and alien to Africa, but Jones Mawerenga says homophobia, not homosexuality, is Africa’s true Western import. He teaches theology at the University of Malawi, and is the author of, “The Homosexuality Debate in Malawi.”
“There’s evidence that proves that these same-sex relations have been part and parcel of African culture way before colonization, and way before the coming of Western missionaries and Arabic missionaries who propagated Islam on African soil,” he said.
He added that British colonialism imposed Western religious and legal systems that criminalized and stigmatized LGBTQ people across many African countries. And while other southern African countries like Botswana, Mozambique and Namibia have become more inclusive, Malawi remains highly conservative.
“Even those people, the British themselves, have repealed those laws,” he continued. “They have seen their irrelevance, but us as Africans, we are continuing with those laws. We really need to start rethinking our attachments to these colonial legacies that keep drawing us back.”
Back in Lilongwe, Cleo Jones hopes that one day LGBTQ people will be treated like everyone.
Until then, the struggle continues for Malawi’s LGBTQ community as it fights for both legal recognition and societal acceptance.
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In Bangladesh, students have taken to the streets in demonstrations that have left at least 25 people dead so far.
They’re protesting the return of a quota system that reserves civil service jobs for specific categories of people in the country.
For example, 10% of jobs go to women, 5% to religious and ethnic minorities and 30% to children and grandchildren of people who fought for the country’s independence in 1971. A lot of the protesters are students, presumably headed into the job market.
Students protesting in the New Market area of Dhaka, Bangladesh, on July 16.Mahmud Hossain Opu/APTo quell the upheaval, the government has imposed what’s being called a complete shutdown of the country starting with universities and high schools, including the University of Dhaka, where Samina Luthfa teaches sociology.
“Today, we have seen even more violence,” Luthfa said. “The violence actually started on July 15. The crackdown was specifically brutal because it was younger children, so they were high schoolers and students from private universities.”
“We saw that it’s no longer about the quota reforms,” Luthfa added. “Now, it is against the violence — this excessive violence that the government has been using.”
Carolyn Beeler: So, you’re saying these protests have been going on for weeks against the quota system, but today specifically, it has kind of morphed in response to the violence that protesters have met?Samina Luthfa: From yesterday, yes.And that’s from various security forces, from the government. How much are these protests about perceived inequalities in this quota system, and were the quotas — kind of contrarily — set up to begin with to reduce inequality?It was actually, because, according to the Constitution of Bangladesh, our state is supposed to provide special attention to communities that are disadvantaged
and marginalized. The quotas are for people with special needs and disabilities,
people who are from ethnic Indigenous minority communities, people who are from backward districts and people who are from the families of “freedom fighters” [of the Bangladesh Liberation War] and women.
However, the students now think that, since most of them are coming from disadvantaged backgrounds themselves, this is unfair for their competitiveness in getting jobs. So, that’s why they wanted to reduce it accordingly, logically, rationally.Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina scrapped these quotas back in 2018. The High Court of Bangladesh reinstated them last month, which is what has been triggering these
protests. Where does the prime minister stand right now?Last night, she gave a speech addressing the whole nation, and it didn’t have much of the context. She said she feels sorry about the loss of lives. Right after what she said yesterday, police and forces, as well as the political goons, have been doing more repressive attacks on students. So, what she said last night and what the police are doing today are completely different.
And today, what happened was the law minister spoke in a press briefing saying that the prime minister is going to reform the whole quota system and they agreed to sit with the protesters today and change everything. So today, it’s clear that they are trying to appease the student protesters. However, in the evening, the student protesters’ coordinators spoke and they said that they are not going to agree to sit with this government that has blood on its hands. So, it’s a stalemate.So, the government has said that it will meet with the protesters. But, now the protesters have said they actually don’t want to sit down and speak with those in charge. What exactly do they want? Are they asking for the abolishment of all of these quotas still? Is that the demand?I think it’s no longer about the quota reform anymore. It’s about the violence. So, what they expected is that they want the violence to stop first. If you want to sit with them in a dialogue, you first need to stop killing them, for example.Students clash with riot police during a protest against a quota system for government jobs, in Dhaka, Bangladesh on July 18.Rajib Dhar/APAre you hearing from students and faculty that you work with about their feelings and concerns with all this happening? I’m curious, what’s the vibe right now there?At the moment, the University Teachers Network, Bangladesh is the most consolidated or organized form of teachers protesting against this violence. We gave a response today in the press saying how we condemn the killings. Also, we are hearing that people are asking for a change in the power.What concerns do you have about how these protests and and the response to
them unfold going forward?I don’t know what the way forward is. Today, it’s really depressing and sad to see so many lives lost to a cause which could have been solved really peacefully, amicably and through dialogue.Students advocating for quota reform in public service hold a mock funeral on July 17 at the University of Dhaka in memory of those who died during clashes.Rajib Dhar/APNow that there has been bloodshed, what concerns do you have about these protests going forward?I am concerned about seeing more deaths and more lives lost. This is the, sort of, top priority for any one of us now. All the citizens are restless and they want to get out and try to stop these from happening.
However, it’s not that easy because, not only students, but also passersby and onlookers were killed as well. What we see to be the solution is, first, to stop the violence, to make the police stop attacking the students or anyone. And to open the university so that the regular process of peacefully protesting can be reinstated. The students are also talking about change of leadership at the top, which I don’t know if that is a feasible possibility yet.One last question. When do you think you might be able to return to the classroom?I don’t know, but I would like to do that as soon as possible.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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Until a few months ago, Immaculate Nakkazi had never even been on a bicycle. Now, she’s a professional motorcycle driver in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala.
“Before, I was very, very scared,” she said during a stop to recharge her electric motorcycle. “For me, even my first day on the road, I was saying, ‘Can I make it?’”
Motorcycles, known as boda-bodas, are one of Uganda’s most popular forms of public transport. Industry experts estimate there are hundreds of thousands of boda-bodas in Kampala. Until recently, all of them were driven by men. That’s starting to change with a new program encouraging women to get involved.
Nakkazi is a recent trainee. She learned to ride and got her driver’s license just three months ago.
She says financial difficulties convinced her to consider it as a career. She has six children, including two-year-old twins. The twins’ father was short of money, and Nakkazi was out of work.
Immaculate Nakkazi learned to ride a boda-boda and got her driver’s license three months ago. Anita Elash/The World“You know this life, you can be with a man, you bring a baby, the man dumps you. You know, we mothers, we don’t leave our kids. We fight to the fullest to see that our kids grow up,” she said.
Boda-bodas are everywhere in Kampala, traveling in swarms and weaving in and out of the city’s notorious traffic jams. Bodas are frequently involved in muggings and purse snatchings. They also have a dismal safety record. At least one person is killed every day in a boda accident in Kampala. One of the largest hospitals in the city, Mulago National Referral Hospital, has a ward devoted to victims of boda accidents.
As a result, many Ugandans dismiss boda-boda drivers as uneducated hooligans, said Vivian Nabisere, a program manager for the nonprofit Women Rising for Africa, which helps women break into the transport sector.
“There are people who are scared of using bodas … Most of them drive a bit recklessly, so that has caused very many accidents,” she said.
However, Nabisere said driving a boda can also be very lucrative.
“We’ve seen testimonies of men in the boda-boda sector where you see a man has built a house. A man has paid school fees for his children’s university, they have bought properties and properties out of this business,” she said.
Even so, women have been reluctant to join the industry, partly because of cultural taboos.
“A woman has to sit when her legs are together, so whoever would sit when their legs are apart, that’s a crime to our culture,” Nabisere said.
Capital is also an issue. Nabisere said most women don’t have enough money to buy a boda and either don’t qualify for loans or are hesitant to take them out.
Women Rising for Africa was established in 2022 to help women overcome those problems. It trains women in road safety, self-defense and financial management and helps them get their driver’s licenses. It also offers loans to women to buy motorcycles. So far, the organization has trained about 80 women and aims to have 250 on the road by the end of 2025.
Magnifique Asimwe enrolled in the program two and a half years ago.
“I’m a rider. A woman,” she proudly declared when asked to introduce herself.
Faced with challenging financial situations at home, more and more women are becoming boda-boda drivers despite the dangers of the job.Anita Elash/The WorldAsimwe said her new job brought her back from financial ruin. She ran a successful candle and soap business, and then lost everything to theft.
“I was shocked. I can’t talk, I can’t eat food, I can’t move.”
She said that she now earns more than her husband does and that she’s the one who pays the bills for their four children.
“I’m now happy ’cause I can make money, so that I can buy food for my kids, my family. I can pay my school fees for my children,” she said. “We are now okay. We are no more crying.”
Nakkazi said she’s also paying the bills at home now and has already saved enough to start renovating her house.
“I’m proud of myself, that I can ride a bike like a man, which I’ve never hoped that I can do,” she said.
She added that she hopes to save enough money in the next couple of years to buy a car and drive for a ride-hailing service. In the meantime, she said that her goal is to convince more men that women are just as capable of driving a boda as they are.
“Some say, ‘No, you are not going to take me. You are a woman,'” she said. “A man from China. He told me, ‘Stop, stop, I want to ask you something. Aren’t you scared of this road?’ I said, ‘No. I got my confidence.'”
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Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stood in a glass cage on Friday in Yekaterinburg, a city about 900 miles east of Moscow, as the Russian court sentenced him to a 16-year prison term on espionage charges.
The US government and the Wall Street Journal have called the process a “sham trial,” vehemently denying the charges. Since Gershkovich’s detention in March 2023, US President Joe Biden has said that bringing him and other Americans home is a top priority.
“I give you my word as a Biden, we’re not going to give up until we get them home, all of them, all of them,” US President Joe Biden said at April’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
When asked about Gershkovich earlier this week at a press conference in New York, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that “special services” in the US and Russia have been discussing a potential exchange.
But he also said Russia has “irrefutable evidence” that Gershkovich was involved in espionage activities. Russia’s prosecutors claim that Gershkovich “gathered secret information” on orders from the CIA. However, they’ve presented no evidence to support this claim.
Russia has been targeting journalists, and clamping down on free speech, especially since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Since his arrest Gershkovich has received outspoken support from across the globe.
“We were in such shock when this whole thing happened,” Ella Milman, Gershkovich’s mother said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “At first, it was hard to accept even, but then it was just like [an] avalanche and it gave us so much energy, the letters, support for Evan, all of it, it’s wonderful.”
“It feels a little bit like you’re sharing the burden with a lot of people and it’s huge,” said Mikhail Gershkovich, Evan’s father.
One of those advocating for Gershkovich is Pjotr Sauer, a foreign correspondent with the Guardian. They met in 2018, around the time when they both started reporting in Russia. Sauer says that since Gershkovich’s arrest, they’ve become even closer.
They communicate through letters, and although those letters are censored, Sauer updates Gershkovich on his life, gossip and sports, while Gershkovich tells him about the books he’s reading and his experience in Russian jail.
“On my birthday, he made sure that I got a letter from him, and for other friends he made sure that they would get their flowers on their birthday, and he would ask us to do it,” Sauer said. “Despite his difficult circumstances, he thinks about us, and what’s going on in our world.”
Despite this, Gershkovich is still highly isolated from the outside world. He spends most of his days in a small jail cell with just one other cellmate.
Sauer said that for most political prisoners in Russia, an exchange is usually their best shot at freedom. Exchanges are almost only negotiated after a sentence is delivered.
Gershkovich is not the only American in this situation.
Former US Marine Paul Whelan has been detained in Russia on trumped-up charges since 2018. Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian American journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has also been in Russian custody since last October.
Kurmasheva was charged with “failing to register as a foreign agent” and spreading false information about Russia’s military.
Her husband Pavel Butorin said that she’s being held in a Russian jail “because of her American citizenship.”
Like in Gershkovich’s case, Kurmasheva’s trial has been closed to the public, so no evidence has been released publicly.
Butorin and his daughters are in Washington, DC, advocating for Kurmasheva to be designated as“wrongfully detained,” which would commit the US government to work towards her release.
“Alsu is not just a number, not a statistic. We are a family, a suffering family — a family that cannot rely on the Russian legal system for justice. We can only rely on our own government to help us bring Alsu back,” Butorin said.
Kurmasheva’s 16-year-old daughter Bibi says that she has exchanged a few letters with her mother, but they haven’t been allowed to speak on the phone since her detention. The only way Butorin and Bibi have been able to see Kurmasheva is through photos and videos taken by journalists before and after court hearings.
“My sister and I have been accompanying our dad to some meetings at the Capitol, and we are there to really shine light on the fact that my mom is just a mother, and she needs her kids,” Bibi said.
Since Kurmasheva’s detention, her family has met the Gershkovichs and others who have gone through what they’re experiencing. It gives them a sense of community.
There have also been recent examples of Americans freed in prisoner exchanges with Russia.
Brittney Griner, the WNBA star arrested for possession of marijuana, was released in a prisoner swap in December 2022, less than a year after she was detained.
For Griner, the feeling of freedom didn’t hit her until she landed at home.
“Oh, not until I’m on the plane, and then once I’m on the soil, and we pulled up to that hanger, and I saw my wife and I saw the US flag hanging in that hanger, then I finally could relax,” she told PBS in May.
That’s the moment that Gershkovich, Kurmasheva and their friends and family are desperately waiting for.
Alsu Kurmasheva of Radio Free Europe Liberty listens to her lawyer during a court hearing in Kazan, Russia.AP PhotoThe post Wall Street Journal reporter sentenced to 16-year prison term in Russia appeared first on The World from PRX.
Redeemer-St. John’s Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, New York, is a congregation led by Palestinian American Pastor Khader Khalilia.
He is from Bethlehem, in the West Bank, and came to the US in 2005 to attend divinity school.
Khalilia has led the evangelical church for a decade as one of the few Palestinian Christian faith leaders in the US and said that he speaks to his congregation about the plight of Palestinians. He also said that many people outside of his own congregation assume that all Palestinians are Muslim.
The World’s host, Marco Werman, spoke to him about what it’s been like to lead a church in the US, especially during the past nine months of the war in Gaza.
Marco Werman: Do you ever get surprised reactions from Americans when they learn you are a Palestinian Christian pastor?Pastor Khader Khalilia: When people ask me, “When did you convert to Christianity,” I always look at my watch and say, “2,000 years ago on the day of Pentecost.” And I always remind people that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, my hometown.People visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the West Bank, March 5, 2020.Mahmoud Illean/AP/File photoSo, a bit of a surprise for a lot of Americans, but your congregation at the Lutheran church in Brooklyn has learned from your own experience and background. I mean, Christian Palestinians do have a low profile, but it’s not an uncommon identity. There are like 160,000 Palestinians living in Israel and the Palestinian territories who are Christian, mostly in the West Bank, where you’re originally from. And you lived there until 2005. What made you leave?I was invited by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to continue my theological education here in the United States, and the goal is to serve the Arab and Middle Eastern community. And I’m serving at an Anglo congregation, but we are also merging with Salam Arabic Lutheran Church. It is the first Arabic Lutheran congregation in North America, and we will have one congregation with two expressions: English and Arabic.
Our members are excited to be together as the body of Christ, and the body of Christ is always diverse and unique and this is who we are now. We’re going to become a multicultural, multi-ethnic congregation.I should point out, as well, that you experienced the conflict firsthand in the West Bank when you lived there and came very close to losing your life. Can you can you tell us what happened?Well, I came back [to my home], and I sat on the couch like a couch potato in my hometown of Beit Jala. And then, all of a sudden, I heard shooting. And then, a bullet passed my ear and I heard it, and then it hit a picture … that was hanging on the wall. And then, we had to lay on the ground, you know, and the shooting lasted for six hours, and we had moved from one corner to another. It was a very terrifying experience. At that time, I was protecting my younger brother. He was next to me. And when the shooting stopped, we went outside and we saw the bullets were made in the United States.How do you share an experience like that with your congregants, I mean, given the politics of the moment, because I imagine it can get very charged very quickly?My people are open-minded. I shared this story in one of my sermons actually. They are aware of what happened to me growing up in Palestine. I shared my life growing up under occupation. I talk about what’s happening to Palestinians on a daily basis.I’m curious if you’ve noticed any changes in attitudes at your church since Oct. 7, when this latest conflict between Israel and Hamas started?People were shocked to learn about what happened on Oct. 7, I have to say, but also they know Gaza has been under siege for 15 years. And they’ve been living in an open-air prison and, basically, the international community did not give a d— about what’s happening to the people in Gaza. And your listeners might know, like 60% of the population of Gaza is under the age of 18. And what we are witnessing happening there, it’s basically been displacement over displacement, destruction over destruction. And what’s happening now in Gaza is a genocide, and we are funding this genocide. The Biden administration is funding the genocide. And my people are very sympathetic to the families of the Israeli hostages and to those people who got killed on Oct. 7, but they also want to see Palestinians have their own self-determination and freedom and live as human beings.An installation of a scene of the Nativity of Christ with a figure symbolizing baby Jesus lying amid the rubble, in reference to Gaza, inside an Evangelical Lutheran Church in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Dec. 10, 2023. World-famous Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem were put on hold due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.Mahmoud Illean/AP/File photoRight now, if you can speak as a Christian Palestinian pastor in the US, what is the hardest part of your job?The hardest part is basically, yes, I’m a pastor, and part of my job is to provide spiritual and emotional and psychological support. But I can tell you, people from the community have been coming to me, they are seeking counseling and guidance and help, and our community is terrified. We are witnessing the rise of hate against Arabs and Muslims and Muslim Americans, and nobody is doing anything to stop this hate, unfortunately. So, the hardest part is to be in people’s shoes and listen to them and provide emotional and psychological support.And what do you think is the most satisfying part of the role you’ve taken on as a pastor and, kind of, de facto representative of Palestinian people? What’s something that you did not expect?Well, I love my job as a pastor. I see this as a call to preach, to preach to the word, administer the sacraments and walk with people. Like, for example, I’m with 12 youth from my congregation in New Orleans attending an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America youth gathering, doing community service here, but also being together to pray, study and sing and dance and be together. So, I love what I’m doing as a pastor.I’m wondering if there’s a cultural side to your role as pastor that you’ve been able to share with your church, something that distinguishes maybe Palestinian Christianity?I always say the word marhaba in Arabic, which comes from the Syrian and Aramaic language of early Middle Eastern Christianity, and the word marhaba means, “God is love.” When I hang out with people I always see people, not as strangers, but as part of my family. And this is something unique about the Palestinian culture.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Related: ‘Nowhere in Gaza is safe,’ aid worker says
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American authorities made a significant arrest in a Los Angeles airport on Tuesday. They detained Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, a former Syrian government official, who was waiting to board a plane to Beirut, Lebanon.
Al-Sheikh is accused of torturing and killing political dissidents in his home country. He had been living in LA since 2020, managing to stay under the radar despite his high profile.
The World’s host Carolyn Beeler spoke with Mouaz Mustafa, who played a key role in locating al-Sheikh. He also leads the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an NGO based in Washington, D.C., that provides humanitarian aid to civilians impacted by war in Syria.
Carolyn Beeler: How significant is this arrest and why was Samir Ousman al-Sheikh wanted in the first place?Mouaz Mustafa: I think this is a huge arrest. This person, before the Syrian revolution began, was actually a senior intelligence officer with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, someone who ran Adra civilian prison that’s located on the outskirts of Damascus. And during his time there, he did terrible things, oversaw and signed off on executions, watched people be tortured in front of him in his own office, did some really, really horrible stuff. Assad himself pulled him out of retirement in order to appoint him as both the governor of Deir ez-Zor and the head of the security committee there.The governor of the Syrian province that you’re talking about?That’s right. The Syrian governorate of Deir ez-Zor, which is on the border with Iraq. This was a place in 2011, when he was appointed, that had been coming out in a peaceful protest against the tyrannical regime in Damascus.
Then, it was this man who was responsible for the detention of countless people from Deir ez-Zor, and he ordered the Syrian regime’s army to shell and besiege and bombard Deir ez-Zor. So his time, from 2011 to 2013, in Deir ez-Zor was even bloodier than his time heading a concentration camp like Adra prison.There are a lot of very serious allegations here, but he has not yet been convicted of any of these crimes. Is that right?Yeah, he’s been arrested on a couple of charges and he’s under investigation for crimes against humanity, war crimes and for every man, woman, child and elderly person who he ordered their arrest or shot by allowing people to shoot at the the peaceful protests.You’ve mentioned that your organization was involved in this case. You mentioned evidence that you helped gather. What role did your organization play in this arrest?Yeah, so our team gets a call. We understand that this war criminal is actually in the US. And so what we did is we went to work right away. We went and reported this to the Department of State, to Near East Affairs, to the Bureau for Democracy, Labor and Human Rights, it’s all within the State Department.
We told some key folks in Congress that could help us push things through. And then, most importantly, talked to law enforcement in the Department of Justice.
So, once we informed the US government, we were able to provide them information of where this guy was in the US — where he is right now and where he was before. Then, it began an investigation.
The rest was going to be whenever we’ve had multiple cases already built. But when he bought a one-way ticket to leave, the arrest had to take place.So, Samir Ousman al-Sheikh has allegedly committed these crimes on Syrian soil. How will a court case against him in the US work? How will he be processed through the courts here?Different countries have different laws in different jurisdictions. Under US code, if the perpetrator is here in the US, then it’s a whole other story, and there’s precedent for this.
And so, because he happened to come to the US, it doesn’t matter if he holds American citizenship or not. It doesn’t matter if he’s killed or tortured an American citizen or not.
He can be held accountable because he came to our country under our jurisdiction. He’ll be held accountable for crimes against humanity or war crimes or torture or anything terrible he’s done.Now, al-Sheikh was a permanent resident in the US. He had a green card, he
was well along the path toward citizenship. The US is not an easy place to gain citizenship for most immigrants. I’m wondering with this high-profile past, how exactly did he get so far along the path toward citizenship? Do you know?I’m wondering the exact same thing. I have the greatest respect for the professionalism of US government workers and Customs and Border Protection and all of that, and whoever reads over a visa and so on. But, I think here there’s either a mistake or something else.
I mean, Google his picture, reverse image his photo, and he comes up shaking hands with Assad. But look, at the end of the day, I’m not mad about that, honestly. Because if he didn’t reach the US, we wouldn’t be able to hold him accountable.
But that is another conversation that needs to be addressed, in all seriousness, is how can war criminals be allowed in or out? And that’s how every single person from the Assad regime or any war criminals should feel about coming to the US.You mentioned that this is a meaningful arrest globally, not just for the US. There have been efforts to prosecute former Syrian regime officials and military figures in Europe and other places. How exactly do you place this case within that larger context?I think this is the biggest case out there. Look, I love that there is a red notice out of France for Bashar al-Assad himself. I think more countries should actually come together in a joint court or joint investigation to where they can put out red notices, arrest warrants for Bashar al-Assad himself that won’t be challenged in court, because a single country alone can’t just go after the president of another country. There’s some International Court of Justice precedent, among other things, and you see those problems playing out in France.
But the other thing is, this is the US itself taking that role, and I don’t know if the US has arrested someone on this level from Syria, ever. I think this is big news on multiple levels.
Most importantly, for me, it is hope for the Syrian revolution and the Syrian people that continue to fight for their dignity and its fear for the dictator in Damascus.Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.
Related: Syrian refugees in Lebanon face growing restrictions and deportation
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Last April, Mauro Graterol arrived at the Venezuelan consulate in Lima, Perú, to register to vote. Instead, he found out he was not eligible because officials were asking for an unexpected requirement he didn’t have: a permanent residence permit.
“I’m 60 years old, and I’ve always participated in elections in my country, but for the first time, I won’t be able to vote because the government didn’t allow me,” Graterol said.
Graterol is not alone.
The permanent residence permit requirement, instituted in 2018, has disqualified millions of Venezuelan immigrants living across Latin America and Spain with temporary residence visas or refugee status from being able to register to vote.
The Venezuelan diaspora has grown significantly in the past decade. Close to 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country in recent years, escaping political turmoil, poverty and increased oppression. Of those, about 5 million are eligible to vote, representing a quarter of the electorate.
Venezuelans gather at their consulate to ask about voting requirements and procedures for this year’s Venezuelan presidential election, in Bogota, Colombia, April 11, 2024.Fernando Vergara/APBut the government stopped registering out-of-country voters in 2018, and its registry remained closed until March of this year, when it briefly reopened for one month to allow Venezuelans abroad to sign up or update their domicile.
Only 508 people were able to make these updates this year, adding very little to the list of 69,000 voters who were already registered before 2018.
In Colombia, home to 2.8 million Venezuelans, only 25 were able to sign up for voting.
Venezuelan immigrants interviewed in Mexico, Colombia, Perú and Spain described significant delays at consulates, unexpected requirements and imprecise information from public officials when they tried to sign up.
People stand outside of the Venezuelan consulate in Lima, Perú.Abby Ardiles/The WorldSome consulates asked for an up-to-date passport to be able to vote, which can take several months to get and costs up to $300.
“Some of these new conditions are unconstitutional,” said Edgard Simón Rodríguez, a Venezuelan political activist in Florida. “For example, according to the law, the electoral registry should always accept new voters, but it remained closed to people abroad for six years.” Also, in the past, Venezuelans only needed a national identification card (cédula) to participate in elections, not an up-to-date passport.
Consulate officials in Mexico City, Lima and Barcelona declined to make comments.
In Barcelona, as of July 17, Venezuelans had no information about where to vote. Elections are on July 28.
Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro is under big pressure. The country will hold elections in less than two weeks, and he’s performing badly in the polls. Observers are questioning how far he might go to cling to power, and some say one strategy has been deliberately making it difficult for voters abroad to participate in elections.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gestures to supporters during a campaign rally in Caracas, Venezuela, July 16, 2024. Venezuela is set to hold presidential elections on July 28.Cristian Hernandez/AP“You can assume that most of those votes would be against the government, so there is an incentive there for the government to try to disenfranchise or discourage those people from voting,” said Fernanda Buril, deputy director of the Center for Applied Research and Learning at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).
David Smilde, a professor of sociology at Tulane University who has researched Venezuela, said, “Maduro is trying to whittle away the opposition vote and, on the other hand, maximize his chances so that he can actually pull it out or come close.”
Last October, Maduro promised to grant free and fair elections after a long negotiation process with the US.
But the commitment was broken after the Maduro government blocked the leading opposition candidate, Maria Corina Machado, from running.
Opposition coalition presidential hopeful Maria Corina Machado gives a press conference outside her campaign headquarters in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 29, 2024, days after the country’s highest court upheld a ban on her candidacy.Ariana Cubillos/AP“In Venezuela, the playing field for elections is tilted,” Bruil said. “For years, we’ve seen abuse of state resources, disqualification of opposition candidates and a complete monopoly over the media.”
These non-competitive conditions have left many Venezuelans abroad feeling disappointed and skeptical about electoral events.
“I lost interest in participating,” said Jocelyn Salinas in Mexico City. “I feel tired and frustrated after years trying for a change in Venezuela, so years ago, I decided to disconnect from the news to protect my mental health.”
Brandon Caballero, who lives in Barcelona, Spain, didn’t even look into registering because his vote, he said, won’t make any difference. “In Venezuela, change does not depend on voting.”
But for many Venezuelans, this is the closest the opposition has been to pushing Maduro out of power.
After Machado was banned from running, the opposition managed to unite behind one candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who is well ahead in the polls.
Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez waves a flag next to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado during an opening campaign rally for the upcoming presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, July 4, 2024.Ariana Cubillos/APAnd many Venezuelans are hopeful.
“I have a lot of faith,” said Nereida Rosales in Mexico City. “I believe change is possible this time, and I will return as soon as it happens,” she said, breaking down in tears.
At stake in this election is the future of Venezuela’s democracy, as well as for the millions of Venezuelans who have left their country.
Abby Ardiles contributed to this report from Lima, Perú.
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A court in Moscow has handed Russian American journalist Masha Gessen an eight-year prison sentence for criticizing the Russian military.
Moscow-born, Gessen is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a columnist for The New York Times. They’ve been one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s prominent critics.
Gessen was convicted in absentia after being charged with “spreading false information.” The case stems from a YouTube interview Gessen conducted in 2022 with an anti-war Russian blogger, Yuri Dud.
The World’s Host Carolyn Beeler spoke to Gessen, author of numerous books about Russia including “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.”
Carolyn Beeler: Masha, how are you feeling today?Masha Gessen: A little sad because this, I mean, this was not at all a surprise. I was arrested in absentia about six months ago. There’s been a search warrant out for me. So, it doesn’t materially change my situation in any way, but it just sort of reinforces the fact that I will probably never be able to go home again.You hadn’t been home to Russia in a while, but I’m wondering if the finality of this verdict is striking you any differently? You know, not being able to return to Russia both for work or as your home country — is that striking you any differently today?Yeah. I mean, the last time I was in Russia was actually to report on what it felt like on the Russian side to witness the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. So, that was two and a half years ago. I was already living in exile, but I could still go back and report. This was the week that Russia started adopting all of these incredibly restrictive military censorship laws, one of which was used to “prosecute” me. I’m one of about 255 people who have either faced charges or been convicted or been actually jailed under this law that was passed two and a half years ago. But, the last thing I actually did before leaving Moscow at that time, on March 4, 2022, was go by the passport office and pick up my new 10-year Russian passport, because I wanted to make sure I had a valid passport to report on the end of “Putinism” when it happened, that I wouldn’t have to stand in line for a visa. And that’s clearly not going to happen because I don’t think the first thing they’re going to do whenever there is a change of regime is review all of these unjust and illegal sentences that they’re handing down these days.Does this ruling change anything, practically speaking, for you, or maybe about your ability to travel to other countries with extradition treaties with Russia?The biggest problem for somebody like me, and I’m obviously in a privileged position compared to people who are actually physically in Russia and are serving actual prison time under these military censorship laws … is that I can’t travel to a lot of places in the world because they have extradition treaties with Russia.Do you anticipate that will be a big change for you? It’s already been a significant change. There are a number of opportunities that I’ve passed up … writing festivals in a place like Serbia, which is not considered a safe place for a Russian dissident to travel to. There are also the security concerns. It’s not just extradition. But there are a lot of Latin American countries that I’ve never been to. There are places like South Africa, which I understand has an extradition treaty. And it’s pretty crazy … you also have to look at which airlines you fly, where their emergency landing plans may take them. But I want to stress that I’m by far not the only Russian in exile who is living with this constant threat. There are people in much more precarious positions who are really trying to get to a safer place before Russia hunts them down.I want to get the basics of the alleged charges that have been levied against you and that you’ve been found guilty of. Can you sketch out the case here?So, the case is very straightforward. I wrote a piece for The New Yorker in the summer of 2022, reporting on what was then known about war crimes in Bucha and Irpin, the western suburbs of Kyiv that had been occupied for a month in the spring of 2022. Russian authorities can’t prosecute somebody for the publication that takes place in English. It’s one of those weird legal things that they somehow observe. So, they waited for me to talk about it to a Russian YouTuber. A super popular Russian YouTuber — that interview has been viewed more than 6.5 million times. And in that interview, I talk about the war crimes in Bucha, and also how my experience of reporting on both wars in Chechnya helped me understand what had happened in Bucha. So, according to the indictment, because military censorship laws require journalists to use exclusively information supplied by the General Staff of Russia. So anything that doesn’t come from the General Staff is presumed to be invalid information, because the General Staff says that Russian troops didn’t commit war crimes. And I said that they did commit war crimes. I’m therefore guilty of “knowingly spreading false information about the Russian armed forces.”A Ukrainian serviceman stands amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 6, 2022.Felipe Dana/AP/FileSo guilty of journalism.Guilty of journalism, correct. Which is illegal. I mean, fair enough, right? They told us that journalism was illegal.You’ve said in the past that you used to text friends who were added to the Russian foreign agents list something like, “Proud to know you.” It was a kind of recognition. Is there anywhere that you see your conviction as maybe a sign that you’re doing something right here?You know, it’s a tricky one because now that I’ve been through it myself and have talked to a lot of people who have been through similar experiences, I think talking about it as a badge of honor, there’s a lot of bravado in it, but that’s sort of not the dominant feeling. The dominant feeling is something more akin to nausea.Why is that?Well, you’re reminded that you’re hated by your home country. And also, the reason that they pursue these cases is quite transparent. They pursue a lot of cases against people who are living in exile and people who have been living in exile for a while. And it’s putting you on notice. It’s telling you, you know, we’re watching you, and you’re never going to be safe. That’s not a nice feeling.But you, as you said, haven’t been to Russia in a few years. Is this also to send a wider message, not just to you, but to others who might consider doing independent journalism or some of the other things that Russia has accused you of doing and breaking the law?Yes, all of these sentences, and especially someone who’s fairly prominent as I am in both countries, all of these sentences are to say, “We’ll go after everybody. Everybody who dares to do journalism and, again, we will go after them no matter where they are. So there’s no place in the world where you’re going to be safe.”I know that you have children, and I’m wondering if you’ve had this conversation with them yet or how you talk about this with them.Well, two of my children are adults and are quite adept at following the news on their own. One of my kids is 12, and it’s difficult, right? One of the reasons that I decided to leave Russia more than ten years ago, when my middle child was 12, was that I felt it was completely untenable to ask my children to constantly be on the lookout for danger because the state was making it very clear that they were going to go after my kids. And I don’t think that our situation in the US is in any way comparable. But, you know, reminding my 12-year-old to always lock the door because the Russians may be after us is not a great feeling.Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity. AP contributed to this report.
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Over the weekend, a 20-year-old attempted to kill former US President Donald Trump as he spoke during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. While the assassination attempt failed, across the globe, leaders immediately poured out statements of shock and well wishes to Trump, who received a minor ear injury during the chaos.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump reacts following an assassination attempt at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. Trump Media surged on July 15, the first day of trading following the assassination attempt.Gene J. Puskar/AP/FileBut one of the leaders who had something different to say about the assassination attempt was El Salvador’s authoritarian leader, Nayib Bukele. He posted one word on X, formerly Twitter: “Democracy?”
As the US prepares for another polarizing presidential election in November, much of the world — likely still fatigued by the 2020 election in which incumbent President Trump refused to accept his loss to President Joe Biden, leading to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the nation’s capital — seems to be questioning the current state of American democracy.
To talk about America’s credibility as a model of democratic government on the world stage, The World’s host Carolyn Beeler spoke to Steven Levitsky, a professor at Harvard University who who specializes in threats to democracy. He is the author of “How Democracies Die” and “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy reached the Breaking Point.”
Carolyn Beeler: What are people around the world seeing right now when they examine the stability of the US system of government?Steven Levitsky:The rest of the world is somewhat shocked, I think, to see a political system that is descending into violent dysfunction and a regime that is increasingly unstable, in which democracy is increasingly precarious. Now, it’s not because of the assassination attempt. The world’s concern has been focused on the United States since 2016, and I think two events are even more shocking than the assassination attempt. One is Jan. 6, and the refusal of Donald Trump to accept the results of a presidential election — just the cardinal rule of democracy. And then I think the recent fact that it looks like Donald Trump will not be held legally accountable for any of the crimes that he committed, including crimes against American democracy. That’s also shocking. So, the assassination attempt is occurring in a much broader context, in which US democracy has fallen into this serious crisis.This is a photo looking straight down taken on July 15 on the red stage at the Butler Farm Show site where former President Donald Trump, speaking before a campaign rally, was wounded during an assassination attempt on July 13.Gene J. Puskar/APFor those of us living in the US for the past several years, we’ve had a front-row seat to the news. But you’re saying that people outside of the US have also been tracking this, and American-style democracy has been losing credibility and influence for years.It has. I don’t think the US democracy ever was quite the shining city on a hill that Americans perceive it to be. I don’t think the world ever had that view. But there’s no question that after World War II, and especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States, for decades, was a model to many aspiring Democrats and many democratic activists across the world. And this is not only disheartening to them but is also frighteningly kind of a negative model for aspiring autocrats. After Donald Trump refused to accept defeat in the 2020 election, a number of right-wing copycats emerged. Right-wing candidates in Peru and Brazil also refused to accept the results of the election. And this is in countries where nobody’s done that for decades.What comes to mind when you say that is what happened after the election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil? How strong of a line do you draw between Jan. 6 and what happened there?Well, there’ve been a lot of parallels between the United States and Brazil. [Former Brazilian President Jair] Bolsonaro is a far-right figure — has a very similar worldview as Trump, friendly with Trump and Trump’s advisers, in many ways replicated Trump. And then, amazingly, two years after our 2020 election, Bolsonaro narrowly lost reelection. And, like Donald Trump, tried to orchestrate effectively a coup to overturn the results of the election. And when that failed, there was a Jan. 6-like event in Brazil in which protesters stormed the presidential palace, the parliament and the Supreme Court building. The difference is that in Brazil, Bolsonaro is being held accountable. He’s been banned from politics for eight years, and he’s very likely to end up in prison for trying to organize a coup. And it looks to me like this legal accountability is helping to calm the democratic waters in Brazil in a way that hasn’t happened in the United States.So, is your argument that the US is no longer a sort of beacon of how to make democracy work, but perhaps how to start undermining a democracy?There’s no question that we’re no longer a model for how democracy should work. And again, the cardinal rule of democracy, any in any stable democracy: All the major parties have to unambiguously accept the results of elections, no matter what. Win or lose. And when parties stop doing that — and the Republican Party has stopped doing that — democracy is in trouble. The other really critical rule in the democracy is that all politicians have to reject political violence under all circumstances, unambiguously reject it. And so how politicians respond to this assassination attempt is really, really important.Protesters in support of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro, storm the the National Congress building in Brasilia, Brazil, on Jan. 8, 2023.Eraldo Peres/AP/FileAre there examples in recent memory of other countries where violence fundamentally threatened democracy, but democracy then withstood the test?Sure. I mean, Bolsonaro in Brazil suffered an even more serious assassination attempt than Trump. His life was in danger for several days. He was hospitalized for quite a while, and Brazilian democracy survived that. There have been, unfortunately, many assassination attempts in democracies across the world. And in many, many cases — I think of Japan in 2022 or even Sweden in 1986, Mexico in 1994, where it’s extremely unfortunate that a leader, former leader, candidate, is assassinated — but politicians sort of did the right thing and were able to calm the waters in the aftermath. And democracy, or in the case of Mexico, democratization continued. There have only been a few cases in history where an assassination really threw the country sort of over a cliff. And the one the case that really stands out to me is Spain in 1936. When José Calvo Sotelo, a right-wing political leader, was assassinated weeks prior to the descent of Spain into civil war. So if you combine a political assassination with a rising tide of violence in a climate, a broader climate of political violence, and if politicians do not respond to an assassination by immediately sort of stepping in, unambiguously denouncing it and saying, ‘This is not how we do politics,’ then an assassination can sort of accelerate a downward spiral.Tell me more why it’s important what other leaders say after an attempted assassination. What does history tell us about the role that that plays?Many, many of the democratic breakdowns that we’ve seen in the world, the most traumatic democratic breakdowns — Germany in the ’30s, Italy in the ’20s, South America in the 1960s and ’70s — in all of those cases, you had rising levels of political violence, paramilitary groups, assassination attempts, terrorist attacks, street violence. All of that was taking up. And in all of those cases, you find mainstream politicians kind of winking at it, downplaying it, ignoring it, refusing to denounce it because maybe part of the base supports it, just being unwilling to very publicly and very forcefully denounce the use of political violence. When politicians do do that, when they stand up and when politicians from across the political spectrum forcefully, publicly, unambiguously denounce violence, it’s possible to sort of turn back the tide and keep violence under wraps.Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.
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The humanitarian situation in Gaza has exacerbated over the weekend.
On Saturday, dozens were killed and many more injured following Israeli airstrikes on what was a designated safe zone in Al-Mawasi near Khan Younis in the south.
Images emerging from the strikes showed dismembered bodies, burning cars and a charred wasteland.
Israel alleges the attacks targeted members of Hamas’ military leadership.
But the strikes — coupled with even more on Monday in the southern and central parts of Gaza — have stretched Gaza’s fraying medical system even further.
The World’s host, Carolyn Beeler, discussed the situation with Hassan Morajea, a regional access adviser with the Norwegian Refugee Council who has been in Gaza for a couple of weeks now.
Carolyn Beeler: Can you describe what the humanitarian situation has been in Gaza since the weekend? What does it look like right now?Hassan Morajea: The situation is extremely dire. The needs are tremendous. Almost everybody we speak to is asking for extreme basics: water, food, some level of shelter. People are waking up and going to sleep to the sounds of drones overhead, regular shooting and bombardment. And everywhere you go, the sides of the roads that aren’t in complete ruin are serving as space to erect your tent or makeshift shelter with your family. And that’s for those who are in better condition. All buildings that are standing are being used as some form of shelter by large numbers of people, and essentially, the services to keep the population alive, it’s just not there.Can you tell me anything about the capacity of hospitals and clinics in southern
Gaza right now?From speaking to other organizations operating in the area, I know that there
are extreme restrictions on the importation of medicines and some key items that are
needed to sustain and run a medical facility.
There’s also quite a lot of restrictions on the ability of emergency medical teams to actually enter Gaza in the first place, along with other humanitarians.
So, as a result, the already completely depleted medical services in Gaza are even further stretched when you have instances similar to what happened over the weekend in Al-Mawasi.And what about food? What is the situation with getting food into these most
recently hit areas?The food situation is also extremely tight. So, while there are some basic commercial goods arriving, it’s extremely expensive and so the majority of the population is not able to afford that.
We were at a reception point this morning on the main road connecting the north and south of the Gaza Strip, and we were looking to speak to people who are on their way down on foot and on the backs of small carts in order to get to safer areas, but also areas where food is slightly more available in the middle area.
The stories that they were sharing were extremely horrific of not having eaten a proper meal in quite a while, not having access to any shelter. There were some people who had
gone down to scope the situation in the middle region, because of the fact that they weren’t quite sure that the services would be there, and indeed in some instances, they were not able to find those services.
So, they weren’t even sure whether to take the risk of bringing the rest of their family down with them, only to find that they’d given up shelter in order to find no sustainable food. So, it’s been a constant, delicate balance for people to, sort of, think about, “If I do have a home and I’m in northern Gaza, do I leave that shelter to potentially find food, potentially not? If I don’t have shelter in the middle region, am I going to find shelter somewhere else?” It’s quite difficult.This conflict does not appear to be concluding anytime soon. What are you thinking about as you look ahead in the weeks and months to come about the humanitarian conditions and humanitarian infrastructure in Gaza?It’s extremely worrying. A lot of people that I speak to outside of Gaza keep asking me what the situation in Gaza is like and how it compares. Throughout my career, I’ve seen countless streets destroyed by conflict.
They’re quite often ghost towns, completely abandoned by populations who sought refuge somewhere safer. In Gaza, on multiple occasions, the entire face of a building will have been ripped off, gaping holes where rockets came firing down. And yet, somebody will be using that dangerous building as shelter.
I think what we have to understand is, unlike a lot of conflict zones, seeking refuge is not really an option in Gaza. People here don’t really have anywhere to go. And as far as we’re concerned, nowhere in Gaza is safe. From that perspective, you add to that the challenges relating to our ability to get aid in and get aid actors in to activate the sites that need to be operational to receive and to serve populations in need. It doesn’t really look too hopeful.The strike on Saturday outside of Khan Younis was on a designated safe zone, and where much of southern Gaza people have fled to from places that were even more risky. I’m wondering, are people still caught off guard when these strikes happen, or is it a kind of grim expectation that this might happen?I think it’s important to realize that the events that occurred over the weekend
are occurring on a very regular basis, but then even within the so-called “safe zone” or
“humanitarian zone” — and I really must emphasize that we don’t like to use that concept of safe zone, because we don’t think of these areas as being safe.
Deir al-Balah, where I am at the moment, is considered a safer area. But even there, we’ve had, in the week and a half that I’ve been here, at least three airstrikes that have targeted buildings in the area where each time we’ve had civilian casualties.
It occurs on a very regular basis. I think, certainly the events over the weekend were much larger in scale and impact, and therefore attracting a bit more attention. But I certainly don’t think that comes as a surprise to the population here.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. Click above to listen to the entire discussion.
Related: ‘It’s a lifelong injury’: From Gaza to Doha, children bear the scars of war
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Yousseff, 32, left Syria for Lebanon to escape the civil war, he said, but he felt he was unable to build a life there for his family. So, he arranged to be on a smuggler boat to Cyprus in January.
The trauma of his voyage is still raw: “The boat captain got lost, and we were stranded at sea for seven days, [with] no water and no food,” Youssef said, speaking in Arabic through an interpreter.
When the boat was tossed by a storm, he fractured his right leg. By the time they were rescued and brought to Cyprus, he said, his leg had to be amputated.
All asylum-seekers in Cyprus are first processed through the Pournara camp, which is located in a rural area about a half an hour’s drive from the capital Nicosia. Vera Haller/The WorldToday, Yousseff, who is in a wheelchair, lives in government-provided housing for disabled asylum-seekers. His roommate, also Syrian, Abdul, 45, made the difficult trip across the Mediterranean from Lebanon in February. Both men asked that their last names not be used because their asylum cases are pending.
Youssef and Abdul are among the thousands of Syrians who have recently crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Lebanon to Cyprus, the European Union’s easternmost country.
Cyprus declared a “migrant emergency” in April after more than 2,000 people arrived there by sea in the first three months of 2024. That’s compared to just 78 in the same period of 2023. Many are Syrians fleeing war and economic crises in Lebanon, which has been home to more than a million refugees since the Syrian civil war started in 2011. In Nicosia, Cyprus, the government has temporarily stopped examining Syrian asylum claims, which has left a whole community in limbo.
Andreas Georgiades, the head of the country’s Asylum Service, said the hold on Syrian asylum requests is necessary as Cyprus pursues a change in EU policy toward Syria. The country wants parts of Syria to be declared safe for refugees’ return.
A family of Syrians waits in line to collect groceries from the Catholic charity Caritas in Nicosia’s walled old town. Vera Haller/The World“There’s no reason to examine somebody that maybe next week you’re going to come and take back his status. So, it’s better to put a temporary stop,” Georgiades said.
He acknowledged that Cyprus is apprehensive about future groups of migrants. Especially worrisome is the instability in Lebanon. The situation for Syrians in Lebanon has worsened as the country deals with an economic crisis, and the Lebanese authorities have stepped up deportations.
“We’re talking about a million-and-a-half registered Syrians in Lebanon, another million that is not registered. This is the estimate plus around half a million Palestinians who have been living there. Let alone the Lebanese who will not want to be in Lebanon anymore,” he said.
The Israel-Hamas war and the war between Israel and Hezbollah at Lebanon’s southern border add to the uncertainty.
Emilia Strovolidou, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR office in Cyprus, said smuggler boats arriving from Lebanon have dropped off since April, when the government suspended work on Syrian asylum requests.
Syrian Ali Almazawi, a 32-year-old computer engineer, said his five-year wait for refugee status in Cyprus was emotionally difficult. Vera Haller/The WorldBut she said the government inaction weighs heavily on the 14,000 Syrians whose claims are pending.
“This new policy has caused a lot of anxiety and many questions as to when this will be resumed,” Strovolidou said.
In the meantime, Syrians like Youssef and Abdul are trying to stay hopeful.
Youssef wants to arrange for his wife and seven children to join him.
“We want our children to take care of us because we don’t have anyone here to aid us,” he said. “It’s tough here.”
Abdul, who lost his left leg in a work accident in Lebanon, where he had fled Syria’s war in 2012, said he is hopeful that his disability will allow him to be reunited with a son living in France.
But Abdul, who came to Cyprus after the Lebanese army deported him to the Syrian border because the Lebanese government didn’t renew his residency papers — said he worries about the dozens of other Syrians who were on the boat with him.
A Syrian father and son wait for an appointment at the Caritas charity office’s in Nicosia, which offers support to newly arrived asylum seekers. Vera Haller/The World“How do they financially sustain their families? Welfare is giving them 500 euros per month. Rent is 500, 600 euros,” Abdul said. “And a Syrian doesn’t have the right to work. How will he live and get income for his children?”
Some organizations in Nicosia are trying to fill the gap.
At the Dignity Center, volunteers help a young, Syrian couple pack free groceries from the nongovernmental organization’s pantry. Cans of fava beans, produce and other food basics are lined up on metal racks.
People enter the street-front center — grateful for the air-conditioned rooms where they can escape the brutally hot summer sun. Employees said that in recent months, 80% of the people who come to collect food are Syrian.
Elizabeth Kassinis, who runs Caritas in Nicosia, said Syrians come to the Catholic charity for groceries, clothes and strollers alongwith help navigating Cyprus’ bureaucracy.
“They are dependent on benefits, and the Syrians have this added complication that the government will not be examining their claims, so they’re in something of a limbo,” Kassinis said.
Ali Almazawi considers himself a lucky one. The 32-year-old arrived in Cyprus in 2019 and waited five years to receive his full refugee status. He now works as a computer engineer and is building a life in Nicosia.
He said that the current situation makes him ache for fellow Syrians still waiting for their asylum rulings. He said that they are prohibited from things most people take for granted — like driving or opening a bank account.
“It’s just hopeless. It feels you’re imprisoned a bit. You cannot imagine what is beyond this,” Almazawi said. “You’re just confined to this status of being an asylum-seeker.”
For now, those Syrians whose cases are still open can only wait it out.
Yara Malka, an editor at the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient Today, provided Arabic translation.
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To get aid into Gaza, by land, the journey begins in a giant parking lot just outside of the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
Here, at the Tarqumiya checkpoint, essential items bound for Gaza are transferred from trucks with Palestinian license plates — which brought the goods from Jordan — to Israeli ones, so the loads can be driven across Israel.
On an early morning in mid-June, workers offloaded and reloaded convoys filled with items like flour, watermelon and pickled vegetables. Then, the trucks went through a security screening before taking the precious cargo on the road across southern Israel to the Kerem Shalom checkpoint into Gaza.
Truck drivers waiting to be called into Kerem Shalom Checkpoint.Rebecca Rosman/The World“Luckily, we had 27 trucks leave the checkpoint this morning with no issues, but on other days, you just never know what the day will bring,” said Addel Kiswani, a truck dispatcher based out of Hebron.
Whether it’s by land, sea, or air, delivering basic necessities to the territory, since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, has been a logistical nightmare. To make up for a backlog in aid, the Israeli government has been allowing more goods to go in from the private sector, but that method, too, has been fraught.
For one, these trips have become risky for the truck drivers — most of whom are Palestinian-Israelis.
For months now, groups of far-right activists have been seen putting sand in truck engines, sometimes setting the vehicles on fire and destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods.
The activists, who have been sanctioned by the US, say they believe that no aid should be entering Gaza until the 120 hostages Hamas is holding are released back into Israel.
The entrance to the Kerem Shalom Checkpoint.Rebecca Rosman/The WorldOne driver showed The World a video of around 100 activists attacking his truck as it was leaving the Tarqumiya checkpoint in early June.
“They punctured my wheels, broke my window glass and even the dashboard,” said the driver, who refused to give his name over concerns for his own safety.
He said the Israeli army eventually intervened and brought him to safety — and he remains extremely cautious on the road.
Long waits, spoiling foodWhen the truck drivers arrive at the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, it’s more logistics, and more waiting; first, to go through security again, and then, to unload and reload their hauls, this time, onto a Palestinian truck, to travel through Gaza.
Recently, a group of truck drivers drinking their morning coffee as they were stalled there, told The World that they’re reluctant to speak to journalists — because some drivers have been punished after being quoted in foreign media.
A truck at the Kerem Shalom Checkpoint.Rebecca Rosman/The WorldBut one driver, who wouldn’t give his name, said that he’d been waiting in this lot since 3 a.m., or about 11 hours.
This has become the new normal since the start of the war, he said. Sometimes, he waits in this lot for up to three days, sleeping in his truck. Meanwhile, the goods sit in the heat, he added, at the risk of spoiling.
According to COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for overseeing the crossings, about 250 trucks now cross the checkpoint daily, but that number is still well below the UN figure of 500 aid and commercial trucks that passed through every day before the start of the war.
Shimon Friedman, who works with COGAT, said that there is no limit on the amount of aid allowed into Gaza, and that the majority of the bottlenecks are being caused on the Gaza side of the border.
He said that this is a problem for the aid organizations to figure out.
Trucks pass through the Kerem Shalom Checkpoint to get into Gaza.Rebecca Rosman/The World“[Israel] has taken many, many steps to increase our inspection capabilities And the international organizations haven’t taken similar steps,” Friedman said.
He continued: “Where we’re seeing a bottleneck is on the other side of the border on the Gazan side, that of distributing, distributing the aid. There are around 900 trucks worth of aid waiting on the Gazan side of Kerem Shalom, waiting to be distributed right now. So, at the moment, that’s where we see the biggest backlog.”
‘One day, the crossing is open. The other day, it’s closed’But some aid officials and several logistics coordinators told The World that they blame Israel for imposing vague guidelines on what’s allowed in.
On the other side of the checkpoint, Ayed Abu Ramadan runs the Gaza Chamber of Commerce, which deals with commercial goods from the private sector as opposed to aid.
He said that whether it’s aid or commercial goods, Israel has made the distribution of food and other products next to impossible.
First, he said, Israel’s restrictions on delivery are confusing.
Goods wait to be sent into Gaza from the Kerem Shalom Checkpoint.Rebecca Rosman/The World“One day, the crossing is open. The other day, it’s closed. One day, this is allowed. The other day, no, it’s not allowed. We are totally lost with what the Israelis are allowing and when they are allowing us.”
On top of that, Abu Ramadan said that Israel has killed many of Gaza’s policemen because they’re Hamas members, so there’s no one to prevent looting.
One of the drivers waiting in the Kerem Shalom lot showed a recent video of people grabbing boxes of macaroni.
When he was asked whom he feels is responsible for the difficulties, he simply shrugged his shoulders.
“There’s a war — it’s hard to blame anyone when people are being killed,” he said, adding, “I’m an Arab-Israeli, and for all my life, I’ve wanted nothing but peace.”
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Recently, a group of migrants from Venezuela and Ecuador who tried to cross the Darién Gap jungle found a new obstacle in the roadless jungle that separates Colombia from Panama — a barbed-wire fence with sharp edges that stands about 6 feet tall.
“Be quiet,” said a guide, who recorded a video of the group of about 40 people as they tried to get around the fence.
In the video, which lasts around 12 minutes, the migrants can be seen walking through a hole in the fence, and then, using a rope to get down a hill covered in dense, tropical foliage as they try to get back to the main trail.
“Here’s what Panama has paid for,” the local guide says in the video, as he shows a broken segment of the metal fence.
Part of fence installed along Panamanian border.Colombia Human Rights Ombudsman officialLast year, more than 520,000 migrants crossed the Darien jungle. The rainforest is hilly and dangerous, with some migrants drowning as they try to wade across its turbulent rivers. But it has become a pedestrian highway of sorts for migrants from South America, Africa and Asia who are trying to reach the United States.
Panama’s new government is now working with the US to stop traffic along the route. Its latest move to deter migrants has been to build fences along the remote trails that migrants are using to cross the Darien jungle.
“I will not allow Panama to be an open path for thousands of people who enter the country illegally, and are encouraged to do so by smugglers, who are also involved in the drug trade,” Panama’s new president, Jose Raul Mulino said in his inauguration speech on July 1.
Mulino, a former security minister who is closely aligned with the US government, added that the transit of tens of thousands of people through Panama is putting public finances under strain — polluting the Darien jungle — as migrants widen paths in the rainforest and leave tons of trash behind, including old clothes, diapers, plastic bottles and shoes.
“I understand there are profound reasons for immigration,” Mulino said. “But every country has to solve its own problems. Panama did not elect me to turn my back on this issue.”
In a statement published last week, Panama’s border police explained that the fences have been placed along different trails, so that migrants only use one jungle route into Panama, which leads toward a village known as Cañas Blancas.
Officials say this will enable them to have more control over who is entering their country, and provide migrants with services.
But villagers on the Colombian side of the border have protested the fence. And they’re suspicious about Panama’s motives.
Emigdio Pertuz is a spokesperson for the Colombian village of Capurgana, one of the most-common starting points for treks across the Darien jungle. He said he’s worried that more migrants will get stuck in his village.
“Panama is not going to go through the trouble of closing most of the routes to just let everybody in,” Pertuz said in a phone interview. “They might impose daily quotas, or say that only those with children can go through.”
According to Pertuz, the border crossing that Panama has left open to migrants is harder to reach than those that have been fenced off.
“We’re going to get more accidents,” he said. “And more injured migrants. And we don’t have the capacity to treat them here.”
Panama has also announced it will boost patrols along sea routes. And said it will put some migrants on planes back to their home countries.
These removal flights will be paid for by the US government under a new deal made by both nations.
But experts believe that neither the border fence nor the flights will be effective.
Bram Ebus, a consultant for the International Crisis Group, said that the numbers of migrants trekking across the Darién Gap, has been almost doubling every year since 2021, despite campaigns by Panama to discourage migrants from making the journey, and even as the number of violent crimes against migrants on the Darien route grows.
“Many of these migrants don’t have identity cards or passports, so they’re obligated to take informal pathways,” Ebus said. “The message from law enforcement, that they want to be more on top of this, will push people into the more clandestine areas where there is less control. And also into sea routes that are used by drug traffickers.”
Currently, there are about 1,000 migrants crossing the Darién Gap every day.
So, Panama and the United States would need to pay for dozens of charter flights each month if they wanted to remove a significant percentage of people, said Thomas Cartwright, an expert on deportation flights.
“You’re probably talking about 115 to 130 people per plane, if it’s reasonably full,” he explained. “And then, you have the situation of whether people are going to receive them. So, will Venezuela receive Venezuelans? Will Cuba take Cubans back?”
Currently, Cuba only takes one deportation flight from the US per month. And Venezuela takes none, meaning that at least for migrants from those countries, the chances of getting sent back from Panama are slim.
In the Colombian town of Necocli, which is the first stop on the way to Panama, some migrants said they are still heading north, despite new obstacles.
Oscar Andres Martinez, a Venezuelan construction worker, looked for a boat that would take him toward the Darien Jungle.
“I know of people who have been crossing,” Martinez said. “If one path shuts down, we’ll find others, the important thing is to keep working for our goal.”
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The finished product: Mandalay mont di coated with daal powder lentil flour—and garnished with roasted chicken topping. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkIn recent months, The World has been following the journey of National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek. On foot, he’s been on a 24,000-mile trek across the globe, which is being documented through a project called Out of Eden Walk.
Today, Salopek is more than halfway through the trip that started in 2013 in Africa’s Great Rift Valley and will end on the southern tip of South America, Tierra del Fuego.
He recently completed his walk across Asia and caught up with The World’s Marco Werman to share about the local dishes he’s enjoyed across the globe so far.
Marco Werman: Today, we thought we’d ask you about some of the food you have been coming across and eating on your journey. I want to start near the beginning of your walk in Ethiopia at an archaeological site called Gona. You called it “the first kitchen.” Why is that?Paul Salopek: This project is based on following the first humans who walked out of Africa, right? So, of course, I’m looking down at my feet as I walk through one of our origin sites, the Rift Valley of northeastern Africa. After talking to experts, they say the place is just littered with millions of stone tools. And what are those stone tools? Their kitchen utensils, choppers, meat cleavers, cutters and scrapers. So, the African Rift, where we were born, was basically a giant cutting board, a kitchen, an antique kitchen.And why is that important? Because it’s about hominids evolving, right?It has a biological premise. When we were able to cut open animals for the first time millions of years ago, using stone tools, we basically sliced open all this energy from the ecosystem that we couldn’t get with a strictly plant diet or a mixed plant diet. Animal protein, animal fat, especially marrow organs, were so nutritious that they “proteinated” us and allowed us to evolve the way we’ve evolved today, big-brained apes.So, crossing Ethiopia’s border into Djibouti, you wrote about a drink that’s popular across Africa, palm wine. For folks who have yet to taste it, how would you describe the palm wine you sampled in Djibouti?It was kind of lemony. It was almost like a light lemonade, frothy, kind of fizzy. And it’s not super alcoholic. It’s actually quite nutritious. But it was kind of funny because we walked out of the desert into these palm groves, and there were a bunch of people out walking around with very large knives because they’re chopping these notches in these trees to collect sap, kind of reeling in front of us, waving their rather large knives.A young Afar boy slices open palm stumps to collect the juice that makes desert wine. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkThe cut that quenches thirst — slicing doum palms to make palm wine. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkNow, moving along into the Palestinian West Bank in Nablus, you spent an afternoon working in a kitchen preparing Arabic dishes. What was that like?Yeah, this is the case, you know, in a highly conflicted area where humans are at each other, and I’ve covered quite a few wars, as well … Food takes on an even more heightened power when humans are in extremis. And I think it’s one of the few places where a kind of a safe zone is the kitchen. And so, in Nablus, my walking partner Bassam Almohor and I joined a group of women who were trying to preserve Nabulsi traditional cooking. As one said, everybody’s eating Kentucky Fried Chicken now. And they were trying to find these original ingredients in a culture of food in the Levant, which is basically a crossroads. You know, they’re influences from Rome, their influences from the Ottomans.Ohood Bedawi and Fatima Qadoumy perform the rite of remembering. Nablus, West Bank. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkTo that point, one of the Palestinian cooks told you, “Our history is mixed into our food.” And I’m just wondering how present that kind of attitude was when you were making food with these three Palestinian women in this kitchen.Absolutely. In this ancient city founded by the Romans 2,000 years ago, this kitchen was an outpost of cultural resistance and preservation. These women [were] very conscious that the herbs they were cutting, the dough they were kneading, the dumpling they were stewing … were kind of symbols of identity for them.Making the dumpling “helmets” for shish barak. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkWell, now, walking across Anatolia, in eastern Turkey, your traveling companion Murat gathered food from farmer’s fields. I mean, you weren’t even aware he was gathering while you were hiking until the end of the day. But the photos of ripe tomatoes and berries, they’re just mouthwatering. How much grazing do you do when you’re traveling by foot?Yeah, I consider it one of the fringe benefits of walking across the world on this project, Marco, is gleaning orchards, and about 80% of my route, I think it’s like 15,000 miles so far, is through farmland. Think about it. Out of Africa, through the Levant, into Anatolia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. It’s pretty rural, so I’m eating a lot of fresh food straight out of people’s fields and orchards. And my walking partner in Anatolia, a Kurdish guy, a photographer, (Murat) Yazar … he would empty his rucksack at the end of the day when we were making camp and out spilled this cornucopia of tomatoes and figs and fiery peppers and kind of very fresh zucchinis that snapped when you when you broke them. He would just kind of smile wryly, and I say, “Where’d you get this stuff?” And, he’d say, “In our culture, Paul, it’s allowed.”Kurdish harvesters tap the cornucopia of Anatolia — tomato fields outside Severek. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkOne final taste from the journey, Paul, is in eastern India, in a small town called Kishan Ganj. There was a pizza shop there, and the owner told you how he learned to make it. Tell us the story of the pizza maker, Mohammad Afaque Quraishi.Yeah, this is one of the more surreal food stories of this global journey. So we walk into this small town, it’s mainly a Muslim town, on this river in Bihar in eastern India … and I see a sign that just pops. It’s a pizza sign. It says pizzeria, and it had an arrow. It’s a handmade sign in the market. I hadn’t had pizza eons. So, I followed this sign to a guy’s shop, and imagine kind of an Indian busy marketplace, right, with awnings sticking out onto streets and lots of activity, local produce. This guy had been a defense contractor in Afghanistan with the US military, working for two years at Pizza Huts on US military bases, on FOBs, forward operating bases. Which, as you know, are like mini American cities. That’s the American way of war. You bring your Pizza Hut pizzas with you. And he had learned to make exact duplicates of Pizza Hut pizzas here in the middle of India. And he was so proud of it. He had custom-designed an oven. He was importing spices from a big port on the Indian coast. And I said, “How’s business?” And he got a little bit deflated. He said, “Paul, I think I’m a little bit ahead of my time. Nobody knows what pizza is here, and nobody eats it.” Mohammad Afaque Quraishi opens his pizzeria for another day of abysmal business in Kisanganj, in eastern India. He misses the Afghan war, where he worked as a civilian contractor making pizzas at a US military base. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkSo distinct foods from disparate places along your track. What a curse you when you think about the common thread and the place food holds for all these people you met.You know, every one of these people I met, every one of the kitchens I had the privilege of stepping into, the dinner tables that I sat around, whether it was a Kazakh shepherd on the floor or on a rug on the sand, or whether it was a Saudi prince’s palace with 16 courses, is that food is the common bridge to each other. No matter what culture, ideology, geography, politics … If somebody invites you to break bread, you’ve made it. You’ve made this kind of primal connection. And just as Murat was, you know, grazing the farmers’ fields as we walk through Anatolia, internalizing his home. Right. He was a he was a melancholic Kurd, and his part of the world was in civil war for 50 years. He kind of was internalizing. He was eating his landscape, eating his home. I see this project as the same, at a global level, that the planetary landscape sustains us. It’s our table, and we better respect it. And every time we eat, we’re savoring a bit of home. So, it’s an important, important glue that holds humanity together.Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.
Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonders of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
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The president-elect of Iran has a reformist reputation, and that helped him at the ballot box last week.
Masoud Pezeshkian overwhelmingly defeated an ultraconservative opponent in the election there.
The World’s host Marco Werman spoke with Sina Toossi, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, about what this means for politics in Iran, as well as predictions for how the new president will govern alongside Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Marco Werman: What does it mean, exactly, to be a reformist in Iran?Sina Toossi: Ever since he’s been engaged in politics, he’s been on the reformist end of the spectrum in Iran; he has always tried to strike a more nonpartisan position within Iran’s political landscape, saying that he’s not with either conservative establishment parties or reformist establishment parties. But his politics have been very much on the reformist end of the spectrum. And his reputation within Iran is pro-reform.
He’s consistently criticized crackdowns by the government, whether in the 2009 Green Movement protests that we saw, then, also during the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” protests where he went on state television and publicly criticized the killing of Mahsa Amini.So, given all that history, what does it mean exactly to be a reformist in Iran today? So, the reformist movement, as represented by the reformist establishment in Iran, has been very battered and has lost a lot of public legitimacy in recent years, especially with large parts of the electorate and many Iranians who are disillusioned with the political status quo — they had unmet expectations. Both with the administration of [Muhammad] Khatami and [Hassan] Rouhani, and many people reached the conclusion that given the entrenched, hard-line power centers and the unelected institutions, that the presidency doesn’t have enough power to bring about the change that they would like to see.
But Pezeshkian won over a hard-line rival in an election where turnout in the first round of this election reached a historic low of 40%, which reflected widespread disillusionment in the political process. In the second round, when it was him against a very radical conservative, turnout increased to 50%. And I think both of these factors, both the low turnout and the percentage of the electorate that did turn out and voted for Pezeshkian, it’s a clear message of a desire for change from the Iranian people.You also mentioned the death of Mahsa Amini and the mass protests that followed. Will people who have protested against the regime in Iran find relief or protection with Pezeshkian?Yes, so, Iran’s civil society and human rights activists and political prisoners have been split on Pezeshkian, have been split on participating in this election. So, we saw that there were many pro-democracy activists who, in the past, had participated in elections and voted for reformist candidates, and they said that they opposed participating in these elections.
But at the same time, we saw prominent pro-democracy activists and political prisoners like Keyvan Samimi, who wrote a big article that gained a lot of traction in Iran, arguing for the need to vote for Pezeshkian, and that in their fight against authoritarianism, that the reformist government would be someone they could negotiate better with and bring about more positive changes, especially when the alternative was a much more hard-line candidate. Right. And of course, looming all over this, is the ultimate political authority in Iran. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah [Ali] Khamenei. How would you describe the relationship between him and Iranian reformists? And is that where Pezeshkian, do you think, will find his reformist ambitions really called into check?Pezeshkian has differentiated himself from the approach of Rouhani, or Khatami by explicitly saying that he does not want to take a confrontational approach to Khamenei and his policy frameworks, and that he wants to act within the policy frameworks of the supreme leader. And Khamenei, after this period of really the failure of this conservative government in kind of bringing about positive development for the Iranian people, may decide to give some concessions towards the reformist camp and Pezeshkian in the wake of these protests to bring about some changes. But that remains to be seen. I’m wondering how much influence Pezeshkian will have over Iran’s foreign policy. Could you imagine Iran’s role in several regional conflicts changing when he becomes president?Yeah. So, the overall strategic direction of Iran’s foreign policy, the president can’t change. That is that by the supreme leader. The [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] basically runs the regional policy with respect to Israel, Iran’s support for Hezbollah, for Hamas. Pezeshkian is not going to be able to decisively change Iranian foreign policy, but he will be able to do things like prioritize a serious diplomatic process with the United States to try to restore some kind of nuclear deal and negotiate, perhaps more effectively, on these regional theaters.What is the single, biggest challenge facing Masoud Pezeshkian as he begins his term as president?The effect of sanctions has really been the main cause of economic malaise and stagnation in Iran for many years now. And these difficult economic conditions that have contributed to a lot of people not voting, or a lot of people hoping that Pezeshkian could change the situation, so whether he can get the lifting of some of these sanctions or not is going to be decisive for his legacy. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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In the center of Barcelona, on the vast, iconic Plaza Catalunya, Pepi Lopez snaps photos of her 9-year-old grandson, Gabriel. He’s covered in pigeons. They’re roosting on his arms and shoulders while all are eyeing the same thing: the fistful of sunflower seeds in the young boy’s right hand.
“It’s amusing. Their little claws tickle,” he said. “They give me goosebumps.”
Nine-year-old Gabriel loves feeding pigeons and getting them to perch on his arms and shoulders.The young boy may not know it, but his sweet-looking grandmother, sitting on a nearby park bench, is wanted by local authorities. She’s one of hundreds of pigeon superfeeders — people who spend a lot of time tossing a lot of food to the birds.
“I usually buy my breadcrumbs in the supermarket,” Lopez said. “I brought this big bag, see? I’ve been in Barcelona for 60 years, and we always come to this plaza to feed the pigeons.”
If you multiply Pepi Lopez by 350, that’d be the estimated number of superfeeders in the area, which makes for a lot of happy pigeons.
That’s 40,000 pigeons, according to Carmen Maté, head of the city’s animal welfare service: “We estimate that we have around 1,100 pigeons per square kilometer in Barcelona when a healthy number would be a quarter of that.”
Thousands of pigeons flock to Barcelona’s Plaza Catalunya, where tourists and a small group of local superfeeders dole out seed.Gerry Hadden/The WorldThe city is trying to rein in the feeding, using mainly persuasion to convince superfeeders to keep their crumbs to themselves. But it isn’t easy, Maté says, because most of the superfeeders are older, and lonely.
“They’re people who feel ostracized socially,” she said. “Their only connection to another living creature often comes through feeding pigeons.”
Social workers are treading lightly. They are trying to build relationships with superfeeders, hoping to gain their trust before mentioning pigeons.
Tourists can’t seem resist a photo with pigeons while visiting Barcelona.Gerry Hadden/The WorldBut to find the superfeeders depends largely on complaints from residents.
At a café on another pigeon-filled plaza, barista Diana Sanmudio said that she holds down two jobs because of the birds: serving her customers and cleaning up pigeon droppings.
“There’s this woman who sits just outside, and she tosses them breadcrumbs,” she said. “We have to chase her off to keep our tables clean.”
When The World talked to Sanmudio, she said the woman had just left and could have been interviewed. But city officials asked The World to leave the superfeeders alone and expressed worry that media attention could undermine efforts to win the feeders over.
In addition to the superfeeder campaign, officials are now using specially treated seeds that leave pigeons sterile and have also banned birdseed sales in the touristy parts of town.
Back at Plaza Catalunya, a young couple sets their baby on the ground, sprinkles seeds on her lap, and films the frenzy. Meanwhile, other kids chase after pigeons while tourists take selfies nearby. High overhead are several much larger birds: seagulls.
A gull kills and eats a pigeon in a sidewalk in downtown Barcelona, Spain, May 31, 2020.Emilio Morenatti/AP/FileSeagulls are beginning to move more inland, in part, because they are attracted to pigeons, which are an easy meal. City officials are also now monitoring seagull populations.
“Seagulls, in large enough numbers, transform,” Maté said. “They become very aggressive, and they’re considerably bigger than pigeons. And unlike pigeons, seagulls bite.”
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Washington is hosting a NATO summit this week, marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Western military alliance.
The challenge for NATO in 2024 is to assert its credibility for the future by showing that it’s up to its central task of deterring military aggression against each of its 32 member states. There’s also a lot of attention on one country that is not a member state.
“I would say the key issue there is what the Alliance does and does not do in support of Ukraine,” Ian Brzezinski, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The Associated Press.
During an appearance on Monday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also talked about NATO’s top priorities in Europe.
“Today, we’re facing a massive, global security challenge after [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s unprovoked, all-out invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago,” Austin said. “Together, with our allies, we move to strengthen our defenses, upgrade our posture and deter further Russian aggression. And we’ve taken steps toward building a credible bridge to Ukraine’s eventual membership in NATO.”
President Joe Biden speaks during the opening session of the NATO Summit in Washington, July 10, 2024.Evan Vucci/APUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy touched down in Washington on Monday night. That was just after Russia had launched a daytime salvo of missiles on cities across Ukraine.
Leaders at the summit in Washington were expected to finalize a joint declaration to make Ukraine’s pathway to NATO membership “irreversible.” That’s something the government
in Kyiv had been hoping for.
As the NATO summit got underway in Washington, Russia’s Putin was hosting India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Moscow. Photos of the two of them hugging circulated as NATO leaders sat down to talk.
The World’s co-host Carolyn Beeler spoke with NATO historian Mary Sarotte about the situation.
Carolyn Beeler: What did you think about the timing of the Putin-Modi meeting?Mary Sarotte: I suspect Putin is trying to show that he is welcome in foreign capitals, even as he is, obviously, not welcome in NATO capitals. Putin has, in the past, attended NATO
summits, and, obviously, that’s not happening now. So, I think this is a certain amount of
counterprogramming. There’s also truly stomach-turning, counterprogramming in the form of the bombing of the children’s hospital in Kyiv for the start of the summit.Workers try to salvage intact medical equipment in the hospital yard at the site of Okhmatdyt children’s hospital hit by Russian missiles in Kyiv, Ukraine, July 9, 2024.Anton Shtuka/APAnd so, what message would you think that Putin is trying to send with this
especially deadly wave of missiles aimed at Ukraine on Monday?Putin likes to mark significant events with violent demonstrations or demonstrations of his importance. He likes to show his significance on key dates by generally violent displays, and that includes both cyberviolence as well as real-world violence. And I think this is part of that pattern. As a historian, for example, when I looked back into the past, I noticed a disturbing trend of Putin receiving violent tributes on his birthday.
So, for example, your fellow journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a brave woman who was one of the few who was willing to report from Chechnya during the war there, she was walking home carrying groceries one day, shot to death from close range. The day was Oct. 7, 2006. That’s Putin’s birthday.
Fast-forward 10 years, the drop of emails hacked from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign by Russian military intelligence, Oct. 7, 2016, Putin’s birthday and so forth. I could just keep going through a list.So, we’re talking about Putin and antagonism of NATO. We can trace that back
to the ’90s, as the Soviet Union and the West were negotiating over the reunification of
Germany. And there was talk about the limits to expansion of NATO eastward. There is some debate among historians about what exactly was promised. What has your research found about what the final agreements contain?As part of the unification of Germany, basically, the West had to convince the then-Soviet Union, which was occupying East Germany, to withdraw its troops. And the question was, “What would Moscow want in exchange?” And at an early phase in the negotiation, there was speculation, not a promise, but speculation that NATO could offer a nonexpansion pledge. But what happened in the end was actually the opposite.
It turned out there was a strategy that [Robert] Gates, the former defense secretary, at that point, he was a young policymaker, called “bribing the Soviets out.” And that was what happened. So, in the end, the treaty and German unification, explicitly, allows NATO to expand eastward. And Moscow signed this treaty, ratified it and cashed the associated check.
Putin ignores all of that. He’s cherry-picking history and, basically, going back to an early round of the negotiations to try to justify what he’s doing in Ukraine, which I do not believe is justified. I believe what he’s doing is a series of war crimes.And what Putin says is that the West promised Moscow not 1 inch of eastward NATO expansion, correct?Yes, that’s what he said. And to be exact, I’m a historian, so I work with the documents, those words were spoken in an early negotiation round. But that was, I repeat, a speculative offer in the course of months of negotiation.
What actually is in the treaty at the end is the opposite. NATO is allowed to expand its Article 5 territory eastward. Article 5 is the heart of the NATO treaty. It’s that clause of the treaty that says “an attack on one will be treated as an attack on all” and the treaty on German unification explicitly allows that to move eastward.
This is what Putin ignores. He is cherry-picking history and going back to the earlier speculative comments made by US Secretary of State James Baker.Still, with the agreement itself being quite clear, as you’re saying, there has
been this history of antagonism between Russia and NATO. Are there alternative paths that the West and East might have taken to balance the interests of NATO members in Russia’s security concerns that might have landed us in a different place today?I think what really mattered was actions inside Russia because Russia became
a democracy and then it rapidly de-democratized. In particular, former Russian President
Boris Yeltsin decided to use violence again as a tool of domestic politics.
In October 1993, he ordered tanks to shoot at his own parliament, killing 100 people and sending 800 to the hospital. And that’s what made countries in the West think, oh wait, maybe we can’t actually be partners with Russia. And it became worse when he then invaded Chechnya in December 1994.
So, I personally think there was a window in the early ’90s where better cooperation could have been possible, that it was happening in the terms of strategic nuclear disarmament. But then, the domestic developments, the de-democratization and, of course, the rise of Putin to power basically put [an end] to that.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. Click above to listen to the entire discussion.
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Days ago, a story started making the rounds on social media. It claimed that Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, had recently purchased a $4.8 million Bugatti Tourbillon while she was visiting Paris for D-Day celebrations in June.
An unnamed source in the story said she used American military aid money to pay for the car, and the story included what it said was an invoice for the vehicle. The Bugatti dealership in Paris said it was a lie, but by the time they released a statement, it was too late. The story had already gone viral.
These are the kinds of disinformation campaigns that Antibot4Navalny, an anonymous group of disinformation researchers, have been flagging since last fall in a bid to blunt Moscow’s efforts to confuse and misinform.
The “Click Here” podcast from Recorded Future News spoke recently by encrypted app with one of the leaders of the group about efforts to unmask Russian bots, their work with global researchers on disinformation and why some people are saying Antibot4Navalny is punching way above its weight as it takes on the Kremlin.
“Click Here”: What’s the best way to describe Antibot4Navalny?Antibot: Most people describe us as an anonymous group of analysts tracking Russia-related influence operations on X, formerly Twitter. We’ve been in operations since November 2023, but I personally have been researching Russian disinformation since March 2018.What makes you different from other anti-disinformation groups?In a nutshell, we don’t focus on exposing or debunking fake narratives individually — in order to avoid getting on the wrong side of the Brandolini law. You can’t take aim at individual stories and be effective. That’s why we chose to expose the channels that are pushing these stories … and dig deeper to explain what the disinformation is trying to do — its underlying agenda — on a regular, systematic basis.How many of you are doing this?We’re a small group. I’m the only one working full-time on this. We also count on what I would call enthusiasts, who contribute their research on a regular basis. And then in addition to that, we have dozens of loyal followers who give us specialized help when we need it.And what made you go from disinformation researcher to leading the organization?Before October 2023, when we really began in earnest as a group, there hadn’t been an occasion to research how Russian influence campaigns were targeting other countries. Our key focus at the time was looking at disinformation targeting Russia and Ukraine. And those were campaigns driven by troll farms, paid humans.
Then in late October of last year, we uncovered a massive bot campaign. Bots [computer software] were posting and reposting a highly produced Russian-language video that was clearly aimed at changing the narrative of the war in Ukraine.
It was saying two things at the same time: One, that Russia and Ukraine were brothers, and two, that the fighting was essentially breaking up a family. We assumed that it was targeting Russian and Ukrainian audiences.
But a short time later, we could see that the very same bots had widened the aperture and had started to target France, Germany, the US, Israel and Ukraine all at the very same time. They started promoting fake articles that were meant to convince people to stop sending Western aid to Ukraine.
This seemed to present an opportunity to use all our experience tracking internal Russian information campaigns and help Western audiences know what to expect. Antibot4Navalny has been tracking Doppelgänger, one of these Russian disinformation groups, can you talk about them a little bit?Doppelgänger started operating in mid-2022. Back in October, when we saw these viral posts on X claiming Ukraine’s defeat was imminent, we began to investigate. The articles were being shared on fake websites that looked like well-known news outlets in the West.
We identified the bots behind the campaign, found some unique photos that had not previously been published, and made everything public. That helped us connect to media outlets like Le Monde and Liberation, and other researchers working on the Doppelgänger problem began contacting us.
We discovered all kinds of funny details about the campaign like the way they developed these accounts. They were alphabetic. All the US-associated bots started with D names; French ones used names that began with J, and German ones started with R.What does a typical day look like for you? Eighty percent of my time is promoting the work we do. I compile new findings, pitch stories to media outlets, and post detailed X threads for our followers. The other 20% of my time is spent on what I think I do best: find patterns, analyze content, and automate our day-to-day routine.
However, for the past several months, 0% of my time has been spent on what I think I do best: expose new bot and troll crowds and build automated detectors.
The team spends most of its time collecting data on bots’ nightly runs. They would most benefit from automation, but we cannot afford it yet.How do you expose bots and trolls? Is technology changing the way you do it?Overall, there are two streams of work: exposing a new “crowd” of bots and following the new accounts joining it to analyze trends, narratives and priorities. We focus on finding a few “species” that we suspect are inauthentic in some way and then we find what’s common between them. Then we gather sufficient evidence to prove that the accounts are inauthentic and let the world know.
Because we track and record the content they promote and/or the topics they comment on, we get a lot of coverage.
To try to make this work at scale, machine learning used to help dramatically, until Twitter discontinued free access to their Application Programming Interface (API). We are still struggling to recover.
What’s important to understand is that the point isn’t really just to look at what bots are writing about or what their specific talking points are. What they are trying to accomplish is more subtle than that. Bots are about introducing uncertainty and confusion — to undermine, not a particular story, but news more generally, to disrupt the conversation itself. That’s why they bring in as many talking points and perspectives as possible, even if they are contradicting each other. It adds to the confusion.How have disinformation groups, like Doppelgänger, transformed over the past few years?Doppelgänger and other influence operators are constantly experimenting in order to work around social media abuse protection measures (and X is struggling to catch up with those changes); X is becoming increasingly less transparent and accessible for researchers; and Doppelgänger seems to be learning from its own mistakes.
For example, the recurring pattern is: A few citizens of a third country are hired to do something on the ground that favors the Kremlin’s interests or agenda; a few days later, Doppelgänger bots are focusing on massively promoting it. It might be taking aim at an official or to chip away at support for Ukraine or some other targeted country.
Now, it seems like Doppelgänger is learning from its own experience when covering on-the-ground influence operations.
Last fall, Doppelgänger bots promoted unique photos of Stars of David in Paris that were never published before. That showed very strong evidence of connection between Doppelgänger operators and people behind the offline operation.Their bots promoted a publication by Doppelgänger’s original site (artichoc[.]io), which used a broadly circulated photo of red handprints at a memorial by AFP — which helped with “plausible deniability.” Bots promoted publication by Le Figaro, a legitimate, reputable media outlet — which made the tweets posted by the bots look more authentic.What have people gotten wrong about bots and their operations?The most common misconception is that bots’ key goal is to promote a specific set of talking points to make an audience believe something specific.
In reality, the biggest achievement of influence operations based on trolls-for-hire is, in our opinion, that regular users suspect each other to be pro-Russian, pro-China, pro-Iran, what have you. Once they encounter someone from an opposing point of view, they prefer to stop the conversation altogether. In a sense, the Godwin’s law is not there any more. It was replaced with “you’re a troll-for-hire.”
The biggest achievement of FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference), as well as of domestic troll farms in Russia, is that it ruined the benefit of doubt. Regular users stopped trusting each other, especially with those holding views different from theirs. Polarization and atomization improved; it became increasingly difficult to seek tactical allies for the sake of common goals among those bearing differing views. It’s “divide and conquer” at its best.How do we fix it?There are some options to explore: Make user-generated data of social media companies as widely and freely available to researchers as possible; stimulate third-party developers to build an ecosystem of third-party analysis tools and libraries; social networks providing users multiple tools helping to analyze the accounts they never encountered before.What are your proudest achievements?There are several. Among some of them, we exposed Matryoshka, a completely new influence operation that was never researched before us. Following our initial exposure, it was further researched by other organizations.
We also collected what we believe is a top-3-largest dataset on Doppelgänger bot activity that can be made available for journalists for analysis and reporting. We collected over 3,500 articles that were promoted by social media bots on X, along with every relevant evidence out there.What do you make of all the media interest in the work you’ve done?We were surprised to see how incredibly interested the media is in Russian disinformation influence campaigns. In just over six months, we were quoted in about 60 stories by non-Russian media in relation to the Russian state’s FIMI alone.
At the same time, it turned out that most media outlets are not used to being paying customers for researchers; they typically trade exposure to researchers for viral stories from them, unlike photo agencies, stringers or paparazzi.The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
An earlier version of this story appeared on the “CLICK HERE” podcast from Recorded Future News. Additional reporting by Sean Powers and Jade Abdul-Malik.
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In the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, blind football players hoping to compete for the French national team train every week under coach Samir Gassama, the co-founder of Bondy Cécifoot Club.
Blind football, an adaptation of soccer as it is known in the US, is one of the most popular sports at the Paralympic Games, which kick off in Paris in August. Eight teams, including Brazil, France, Turkey, Morocco, China, Argentina, Colombia and Japan, have been selected to compete at the Games.
In the first round of blind football, France, the European champion, will face gold-medal winners, including Brazil, which has dominated at the Paralympics since blind football was first officially included in the Games in 2004.
“We’re hoping we will take home a medal, but it will be hard,” Gassama said.
In blind football, or cécifoot as it’s known in France, four of the five players on each team are partially or fully blind and wear blacked-out eye masks so everyone has the same level of blindness.
Blind football, an adaptation of the sport known as soccer in the US, is one of the most-popular sports of the Paralympic Games, which kick off in Paris in August. Players on France’s Bondy Cécifoot Club train for the Games.Orla Barry/The WorldThe fifth player, the goalkeeper on each team, is sighted. The football is specially designed with bells inside so the players can locate it easily.
On the pitch, players constantly shout “voy, voy,” a Spanish term meaning “I’m going” — a nod to the sport’s origins in Spain in the 1920s — to indicate their positions to other teammates.
During the match, several coaches for each side call out instructions. In the stands, though, the fans are urged to remain silent, Gassama said — the players need to be able to concentrate.
In the first round of blind football, France, the European champion, will face gold-medal winners, including Brazil, which has dominated at the Paralympics ever since blind football was first officially included in the Games in 2004. Players on the Bondy Cécifoot Club are training to compete.Orla Barry/The World“It’s like a tennis match,” Gassama said. “If there is too much noise off the pitch, the referee will stop the game and call for silence.”
Martin Baron, 36, a 20-year veteran of blind football, plays on the Bondy Cécifoot Club.
Baron, who’s been blind since birth, is a software engineer. He was just picked this week for the French team at the Paris Paralympics.
The pitch for blind football is around the same size as a FIFA futsal pitch, and kickboards surround the field to prevent the ball from going out.Orla Barry/The WorldBaron already has a silver medal from the London Paralympics in 2012. He said that part of the attraction for him is the competitive nature of the sport.
“But honestly, winning or losing, just playing with this team gives me such pleasure,” he said.
Mamadou Thiam started playing the sport as a teenager growing up in Mali. Thiam, who now lives in Paris, works full-time as a legal assistant. Like Baron, he was born blind and said he dreamed of being a professional soccer player as a young boy.
“Playing this game lets me feel like I’m fulfilling that dream,” he said.
Thiam won’t be playing for the French national team this summer — “But when Mali qualifies, then, I will play for my home country,” he smiled.
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Shalom Falafel has been in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem since before Israel was even a state. It’s known for its perfectly fried, hot falafel balls, its stuffed pitas and its delicious sauces. But there’s something else that also distinguishes it from other falafel shops: hilbe.
Ilai Waimann proudly holds up two large containers of fresh hilbe made by his uncle, Alon Kahalani.Sarah Ventre/The WorldHilbe is a yellowish-green sauce made from fenugreek seeds. And it’s a Yemenite delicacy, for Jews who originally hail from Yemen.
“Things will be different when you think about your life before [trying] hilbe and after hilbe,” Ilai Waimann, a Yemenite Jew from Jerusalem, told The World.
It’s hard to imagine a condiment being so magical, but hilbe really is the stuff of legend.
“It’s powerful stuff.”
Itamar Kahalani, Yemenite Jew from Jerusalem
“When you eat hilbe, it’s like when Popeye eats spinach,” said Waimann’s cousin, Itamar Kahalani. It makes your [muscles] grow, and you can lift anything you want. … It’s powerful stuff.”
Susan Weingarten is a food historian specializing in late antique Jewish sources. She said there are references to hilbe in the ancient Jewish text, the Talmud, and even as early as the first century. The historian Flavius Josephus wrote about hilbe in the siege of Yodfat, which happened in the year 67.
Nadav Waimann squeezes lemon juice while his uncle Alon Kahalani looks on.Sarah Ventre/The World“The Jews were on top of the hill, and the Romans [were down at] the bottom, so they threw things on them,” Weingarten said. “First, they threw boiling oil on them, which wasn’t very pleasant for a Roman in his armor. And then, they had the bright idea of using hilbe, which is a slippery jelly, before you turn it into a foam. So, if you throw down slippery jelly, and these people are trying to climb up on planks, then all they did was slither around.”
In the US, fenugreek seeds can be found at Indian markets and some health food stores.Sarah Ventre/The WorldTechnically, the fenugreek seeds are the hilbe. But when people talk about hilbe, they usually refer to the sauce, which is marked by the taste and scent of those seeds.
“You either love it (fenugreek seeds) or you hate it.”
Susan Weingarten, food historian specializing in late antique Jewish sources
“Fenugreek seeds have an extremely strong and specific taste. You either love it or you hate it,” said Weingarten. The smell is so strong, that some say it can even cross [into] the placenta. “There’s a claim that Yemenite babies will come out of their mother’s womb smelling of hilbe.”
Weingarten described the taste as slightly sulfurous. Others might describe it as bitter or even just as “funky.”
The claim about hilbe-scented newborns is far from the only rumor about the Yemenite sauce. There’s also a laundry list of supposed health benefits, including that hilbe lowers cholesterol, helps ward off diabetes, assists in milk production in nursing women, can be used as a pre-workout drink (like a protein shake), manages blood pressure, helps prevent hair loss — and so much more. (Not all of the claims have been studied or scientifically evaluated.)
Ilai Waimann reaches for a spoonful of fresh hilbe.Sarah Ventre/The WorldIf you go into any Yemenite community in Israel, especially on a Friday afternoon, it’s almost certain you’ll find families eating chicken soup with hilbe as a pre-Sabbath meal.
Waimann’s and Kahalani’s family lives in Aminadav, a small, mostly Yemenite community southwest of Jerusalem. In this family, Alon Kahalani (Itamar’s father and Ilai’s uncle) is the keeper of the hilbe flame.
On one warm, breezy afternoon, he gathered together his children, nephews and all the necessary ingredients for fresh hilbe. Sitting on his kitchen countertop, he laid out fenugreek seeds, garlic, lemon, cilantro, water, salt and zhug (Yemenite hot sauce).
Alon Kahalani shows reporter Sarah Ventre how to blend hilbe to the proper consistency.Courtesy of Ilai WaimannThe brown fenugreek seeds were soaked overnight in a clear glass bowl. They puffed up a bit and sat at the bottom of the bowl, the water floating on top having turned yellow.
“Usually I drink this water before I use the hilbe because it’s very healthy,” Alon Kahalani said.
He poured out a couple of glasses and toasted, “L’chaim!” which means “To life!” The water smelled a bit like maple syrup but tasted sharp, bitter and almost metallic.
Alon then blended all of the ingredients and explained, over the roar of the blender, that he wanted it to be the consistency of “bubble soap.”
Alon Kahalani prepares hilbe by blending the ingredients together until they become foamy and frothy. He says it should be the consistency of “bubble soap.”Sarah Ventre/The WorldAfter one or two small adjustments, Alon went in for a quick taste test. He grabbed a spoonful of the foamy, frothy, light green sauce with flecks of herbs dotted across it. After a lot of buildup and with very little fanfare, Alon declared that he’d produced the perfect bowl of hilbe.
“That’s it,” Alon Kahalani said, dropping the spoon on the counter.
Ingredients used to make hilbe.Illustration by Sarah Ventre/The WorldDirections for how to make hilbe.Illustration by Sarah Ventre/The World“My mother was a good teacher,” he said, explaining that she taught him how to make hilbe when he was just 10 years old.
Everyone grabbed a spoon and started eating without the assistance of any soup or falafel or even pita. Since hilbe doesn’t keep for very long, it’s usually best to eat it within 24 hours of first making it before it loses its luster.
That’s not a problem, though, in the Kahalani household — because there are never any leftovers.
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Maha Rahma was 7 years old when she lost her mother to Alzheimer’s disease.
Since then, she has dreamed of studying the brain, finding out why this disease killed her mother.
“I want to help other people avoid it,” she said.
But life has had other plans for her. When she was 9, war broke out in Syria. Rahma’s city, Homs, came under siege, with government forces cutting it off from the outside world for more than two years. She recalled constant shelling and sniper fire and that people starved.
Rahma’s family managed to escape. On a cold, December day in 2013, they crammed into her uncle’s car and drove to Lebanon. There were a few checkpoints, Rahma said, but they had no problem getting through.
Rahma’s family is among 1.5 million Syrians who have fled to Lebanon, a country of about 5 million.
Thirteen years since conflict broke out in Syria, Lebanon remains home to the world’s largest Syrian refugee population per capita. Now, Lebanese politicians say they must be sent home. In recent months, many employers have stopped hiring Syrians, and some municipalities have issued new restrictions and even evicted Syrian tenants, according to news reports.
Maha Rahma only had a year and a half left of her studies at a private college in Lebanon but she says she hasn’t been able to renew her residency and so she can’t register to finish her studies.Shirin Jaafari/The World For Rahma, life in Lebanon has not been easy.
For weeks after she and her family had moved to the country, Rahma heard the sounds of shelling in her head. She would wake up in the middle of the night, terrified, thinking she was still in Homs.
Slowly, Rahma’s family started to build a life for themselves in the Beqqa Valley in central Lebanon. Her father found work as a blacksmith. Her stepmom volunteered at a charity.
Rahma went to school.
“It was tough,” she recalled. “The Lebanese education system put up one hurdle after another.”
She had to go back a year, because they wouldn’t transfer her credits, she said. In the end, Rahma managed to pass her baccalaureate exams, and at 23, she now attends a private college in Lebanon.
Neurology wasn’t an option at this college, she said, so she picked the closest field available: biochemistry. For a few years, it seemed like Rahma was getting closer and closer to earning her degree. Until it was time to renew her residency papers.
To do that, she was told she has to have her school certificate from Syria approved in Lebanon. But each time she tried to do so, she ran into more bureaucracy.
“It’s like we go round in circles,” she said.
Without her residency papers renewed, Rahma can’t continue her education. And she’s not alone. She said many of her Syrian classmates are facing similar problems.
‘They have to go back’There has been a rise in anti-Syrian sentiments in Lebanon since 2019, said Dalal Harb, spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency in Lebanon.
“Lebanon is going through its worst economic crisis in its modern history, and this is not an easy situation at all,” Harb said.
Last year, roughly 14,000 Syrians were subjected to deportations or pushback operations that were conducted by the Lebanese army, aid groups say, a dramatic increase compared to the 1,500 documented cases in the previous year.
Harb said the recent killing of a Christian political figure, Pascal Sleiman, has added to the anti-Syrian sentiments in Lebanon.
Suleiman was abducted and killed on April 7. A day later, his body was found in Syria. The Lebanese army accused Syrians of Sleiman’s murder.
“There is no room for them to stay here. They have to go back to Syria,” said Naji Emile Hayek, vice president of the Free Patriotic Movement in Lebanon, a Christian party.
He said that the Syrian refugees coming to Lebanon claim they’re fleeing the Syrian civil war, but in reality, this is an economic invasion.
“They claim that they cannot go back to Syria but the fact of the matter is they are here typically for financial reasons because here, they can make more money,” Hayek said. “The UNHCR and some European countries, what they do is they tell you ‘if you stay in Lebanon, then we’ll give you $100, $200 a month.’ So, they come.”
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel are at an all-time high, he added, so Lebanon is not much safer than Syria. He said that Syrians are better off going back home.
But human rights organizations like Amnesty International have documented cases in which Syrian security forces have detained, tortured and killed refugees who returned.
“Human rights organizations unanimously agree: no part of Syria is safe for refugee returns. Lebanon’s authorities must stop summarily deporting refugees to a place where they are at risk of violations, lift restrictions and end their vitriolic campaign against refugees. EU countries similarly have a legal and moral obligation to refrain from forcibly turning back boats carrying migrants to Lebanon,” Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Aya Majzoub,” said in May.
Harb of UNHCR explained that the majority of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon say they want to return to Syria, but that they need to feel safe and have access to basic necessities like housing and health care.
“The presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon is not driven by the assistance provided to them here,” Harb said, “but it is driven by the situation in Syria.”
‘Not a life I want to live’Abed Ali Ibrahim, who fled from Syria to Lebanon in 2014, said that he worries that he and his family could soon be uprooted again.
Ibrahim has been out of work for about four months because his former employer refused to sponsor his residency.
“My situation is terrible,” he said from the small apartment that he and his family rents in west Beirut.
Abed Ali Ibrahim stands in the balcony of his apartment in West Beirut.Shirin Jaafari/The World“I’m jobless and I still have to pay rent, electricity and everything else. Sometimes, we go without food.”
Ibrahim has six children — two of them were born in Lebanon. None of them have residency, he said.
Syria is not safe for them, Ibrahim said: “You either have to be on the side of the government or the opposition. It’s not safe for my children.”
For now, he said, he lives in limbo, unsure of what to do. He can’t work without current residency papers.
With little choice left, Ibrahim said he is considering making the unsafe journey on a boat to Europe.
“This is not a life I want to live,” Ibrahim said.
Related: An abandoned hotel in southern Lebanon has become a sanctuary for dozens of displaced families
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On Sunday night, in big cities like Paris and Marseille, France, vast crowds of left-leaning voters exploded in cheers as legislative election results came in. The far-right had been stopped.
The far-right party, National Rally, was expected to win the most seats — with the possibility of an outright majority — after its surprise victory in round one a week ago. Instead, the party came in last, behind a coalition of far-left parties. President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist group quickly formed a unified front, teaming up with a singular goal of defeating National Rally candidates in every voting block.
People stand in a square as they react to projected results after the second round of the legislative elections, in Lyon, central France, Sunday, July 7, 2024.Laurent Cipriani/APBut as celebrations roared across France, in Perpignan, not even a horn honk or a hoot from a balcony could be heard. Most locals there and the surrounding hill towns support the far-right party, and the results left them little to cheer for.
“We need a firm hand in power,” said Esperance Martinez, a retiree who volunteered at a polling station on Sunday in the rural town of Millas. “There’s too much crime, drugs, rapes and murder,” she said.
A man enters the voting station in the small town of Millas, southwest France. This region tends to vote for the far-right.Gerry Hadden/The WorldAccording to French police statistics, violent crime is up in France. It rose by more than 50% between 2016 and 2023.
“These days in France, it’s becoming like the US with no-go zones,” said Laurence Noguera, a voter. “Our vote is driven entirely by fear. Fear for our kids and our grandkids.” She added that “most Muslims are upstanding people. It’s just a few bad apples that have stigmatized them all.”
Neither Noguera nor Martinez would say who they voted for. But demonizing Muslims, and foreigners in general, has long been the National Rally’s rallying cry.
In tiny hill towns like Joch, polls suggest that residents vote heavily for the far-right. Their chief concerns are crime and immigration — two issues the far-right National Rally tries to tie together.Gerry Hadden/The WorldIn the nearby hamlet of Loch, a woman named Mina Saphie had just finished voting when The World ran into her. She said that France needs to change.
“Foreigners get all the government help,” Saphie said, “and those who work get nothing. There are French people on the streets. And that is an injustice.”
If the National Rally had won, its leader, Marine Le Pen, would have promised to prioritize French citizens, giving them preference over outsiders for jobs and government assistance.
Far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen answers reporters after the second round of the legislative election, Sunday, July 7, 2024, at the party election night headquarters in Paris.Louise Delmotte/APBut none of that was enough against a new, hastily-hewn leftist coalition that teamed up for round two with President Macron’s centrist candidates. There were hints of that Sunday, even within this bastion of the far-right.
The left-center alliance worked, with the far-left New Popular Front winning the most votes, Macron’s Together coalition placing second and National Rally third, effectively becoming fenced out of power.
Campaign posters spanning France’s political spectrum.Gerry Hadden/The WorldBut if halting radical rights was tricky enough, forming a government among anti-capitalists, communists, socialists and centrists could be even more daunting. Macron, suffering in the polls, must show strong leadership to find common ground.
Yet, the first politician to address the nation on television after polls closed was not Macron, but the outspoken leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the eco-leftist, Euro-skeptic France Unbowed Party. His first demand was the prime minister’s job for his faction and the right to form a new government.
However, who the next prime minister will be might still need to be discovered, as is whether they can work with a centrist president to get stuff done.
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When Firdaus Razai arrived in New Delhi, India, from Kabul, Afghanistan, at the age of 12, he said, everything felt strange and unnerving.
“I was very scared at first,” said Razai, who is now 18.
Delhi was unbearably hot — a stark contrast from his home in Afghanistan, which was surrounded by mountains, he said. But unlike Kabul, which saw volatility with the rise of the Taliban, Delhi seemed safe.
It’s that feeling of relative security that makes India a draw for some 200,000 refugees, according to the UNHCR.
Now, at least some of those migrants could potentially see their lives transform. The Citizenship Amendment Act, which went into effect in March, expedites Indian citizenship for refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India before 2015. Refugees are eligible for citizenship if they’ve stayed in the country for five years, rather than 11 as was mandated before.
But there’s another condition: faith. The fast-track citizenship can be availed if the refugee is Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Christian, Buddhist or Parsi, but not if they’re Muslim. The law leaves out Razai and most other Afghan refugees in India, in addition to tens of thousands of Muslim asylum-seekers from other countries.
It marks the first time that India — an officially secular state with a religiously diverse population — has set religious criteria for citizenship.
“It so clearly discriminates against Muslims,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy director at Human Rights Watch’s Asia division.
The Indian government denies any discrimination. Its argument is that Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are Muslim nations where people of other faiths are targeted and, therefore, need protection.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government proposed the controversial law back in 2019, which sparked widespread protests. The government says that the move will end the suffering of persecuted religious minorities in South Asia.
But Ganguly disagrees with that logic. She said that many Muslims in those countries are also persecuted.
“If the Indian government decides that it is going to protect religious minorities from neighboring countries, that’s a good thing,” Ganguly said. “We would just not want it to be limited to a certain demographic but expand to a whole group of people that might need protection.”
The law handpicks refugees from India’s Muslim-majority neighbors but doesn’t cover countries like Sri Lanka where most people are Buddhist. Tamils from Sri Lanka are one of the largest groups of refugees in India. The Citizenship Amendment Act also overlooks South Asia’s biggest migrant crisis, the displacement of the Rohingyas of Myanmar. Indian authorities have threatened to deport Rohingyas, who are also Muslim.
This isn’t how India used to treat refugees, Ganguly said, adding that India’s track record has been “fairly good.” India gave refuge to tens of thousands of Tibetan refugees following the Tibetan uprising in 1959 and continues to host the Dalai Lama.
“India was considered a generous host but, unfortunately, that has changed now,” Ganguly said. “Some of it could reflect what is a global pushback [against migration] but the particular concern with India is also that it identifies Muslims as the ones that are not welcome.”
A ‘moral obligation’Meanwhile, some of those eligible for naturalization under the new rules have already received their citizenship certificates. Pakistani refugee camps in India, home to mostly Hindus, erupted in celebration when the law went into effect.
Hindu Singh Sodha, who came to India from Pakistan in the 1970s and became an Indian long ago, now advocates for other Pakistani refugees. He said that he welcomes the Citizenship Amendment Act.
“This is the moral obligation of India to accommodate these people,” he said, adding that the law should be expanded to include those refugees who came to India more recently, too.
He said that it is India’s responsibility to take in Hindus and other minorities who suffered in Pakistan after the 1947 Partition, when the Indian subcontinent was split into the Muslim state of Pakistan, and the secular nation of India with a Hindu majority.
Sodha said that the Partition left many non-Muslim families to face discrimination in Pakistan, and the new law corrects that.
Amit Shah, Modi’s right-hand man, echoed this rationale in parliament in 2019 when he introduced the law.
“If the country had not been divided along religious lines when it became independent, we wouldn’t have needed this law,” Shah said.
Political observers say the Citizenship Amendment Act fulfills Modi’s idea of India as a homeland for Hindus and a Hindu-first nation. But many Indians reject this vision.
“India has always opened its doors to outsiders, but to do it on this specific basis of religion in a secular state is unacceptable,” said Deb Mukharji, a retired diplomat and one of nearly 200 petitioners who have challenged the citizenship law in India’s top court. (The case is ongoing and the last hearing was held in March.)
Petitioners argue that by leaving out Muslims and making faith a basis for citizenship, the government is acting against India’s constitution.
“If you wish to open your doors, do so with a generosity of spirit,” Mukharji said.
Some also fear that this new law combined with the possible exclusion of Muslims from a proposed citizen registry could end up making some Indian Muslims stateless. The Indian government has insisted that would not happen.
A tough road for refugees in IndiaIn a south Delhi neighborhood where many Afghan refugees live, Mohammed Qais Malikzada works out of a tiny basement office as head of the Afghan Solidarity Committee.
He sits under his country’s flag listening to the concerns of his fellow Afghan refugees who come to him for guidance.
Mohammed Qais Malikzada, head of the Afghan Solidarity Committee, works out of a tiny basement office in Delhi where Afghan refugees come to seek his advice. Sushmita Pathak/The World“We have engineers, doctors. They cannot find any job because they don’t have Indian documents,” Malikzada said.
India lacks a comprehensive refugee policy and grants asylum on a case-by-case basis. The only identification many Afghan refugees in India have is a card from the UN refugee agency.
“If [the Indian] government [provides] documents like nationality, like passports, I think there’s not any other country better for Afghan refugees than India,” Malikzada said.
If Muslim Afghan refugees could get citizenship under the new law, he said, they wouldn’t go anywhere else. But without that, many don’t see a future in India.
Razai, the refugee from Kabul, said that he hopes to move to Canada.
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Biniam Girmay is the first Black cyclist to win a stage at the world’s biggest cycling race, Tour de France. He called his victory “a win for all Africans.”
Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay, wearing the best sprinter’s green jersey, celebrates on the podium after the ninth stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 123.7 miles with start and finish in Troyes, France, July 7, 2024.Daniel Cole/APThe World’s host Carol Hills spoke to Kimberly Coats in Las Vegas. She knows Girmay well and is the CEO of Team Africa Rising, which works to grow the sport on the African continent.
Carol Hills: You know Girmay and his story. How much does this victory in the sprint stage actually mean to him?Kimberly Coats: Well, it means the world to him. But even more importantly, it means so much to all the young cyclists who are in the development process on the African continent, which are literally thousands of young kids, men and women. This has been years in the making. I started it in Rwanda in 2009. So, this has been 15 years, and seeing the progress of somebody like Biniam make it through the ranks and make it onto the history books is huge. I can’t even put it into words most days. So, you followed him from the beginning. Tell us about his backstory. Biniam Girmay is from Eritrea, and Eritrea is a challenging country. Like most African countries, it’s very difficult to get visas to places like Europe. With cycling on the African continent, we lack access to equipment. We lack access to training. In many cases, like in the case of Eritrea, internet is very challenging. So, there are a lot of advantages that European and even American cyclists have before they even get to the start line. Biniam has to overcome so much and it makes it that much harder. I was reading about Biniam, and I was interested to learn that cycling was already popular in Eritrea because of the Italians who’d colonized it, and they made the cycling popular. So, he sort of grew up watching cycling races.A hundred percent. I’ve been to Eritrea on several occasions, and there’s this one road right outside of Asmara, the capital city, and you will literally see hundreds upon hundreds of young cyclists up and down this road, training on all sorts of bikes, and you’ll see all the pro jerseys among all these riders. So, as Eritreans make it out, make it onto professional teams, there’s several on pro continental and world tour teams that they give back to their local community. And you see kids wearing Intermarché jerseys and being the next Biniam Girmay, or Lidl-Trek jerseys. It’s just amazing to watch. I’m curious, you know how in East Africa, the runners from there sort of have an advantage in international competitions because of the altitude? Is that true for cycling, too, because Biniam has been training all these years at higher altitudes, does that really help him prepare for something like the Tour de France?It definitely does. I think Asmara is at almost 8,000 feet. So, within East Africa — whether it’s Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Eritrea — most of these guys are along the Great Rift Valley, so they do train at altitude. I know when we lived in Rwanda, we were at about 6,700 feet. On top of that, it’s not only just the altitude, it’s just their natural, God-given gift to be able to race at this level. So, it’s not a matter of, do they have the talent? It’s a matter of, do they have access to everything they need to nurture that talent? This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. Click above to listen to the entire discussion.
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Athletes in Ukraine have been leading the call for a total ban on Russian and Belarusian participation in this year’s Paris Summer Olympic Games.
Former Ukrainian boxer and heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko has argued that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should not show leniency.
Wladimir Klitschko, former boxer and brother of Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko, speaks during a visit at the German forces Bundeswehr training area in Munster, Germany, Feb. 20, 2023.Gregor Fischer/AP/File“Do not do this; otherwise, you will betray the Olympic spirit. A country that tramples on the basic principles of international law cannot be legitimized and supported by the international body of sport,” Klitschko said.
Ukraine’s political leadership has also advocated for a full ban. About two years ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, “Many Ukrainian athletes have joined the armed forces to defend our country” and that dozens of them have already died on the battlefield.
Zelenskiy argued that Russia should not be allowed to use sports “to promote its political interests and propaganda.” Dozens of other countries have joined Ukraine’s call for a full ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, has pushed back.
Last December, Putin said that sports are supposed to unite people, not divide them.
“Everything that international officials are doing with Russian sports goes completely against the Olympic ideal,” he said.
But Jens Sejer Andersen, founder of “Play the Game,” a Danish initiative that aims to raise ethical standards in sports, said it’s not simple, especially regarding Russia.
“The question of Russian participation in the Olympics has been around for a while because of the revelations of how the Russian state and the Russian sports system had cheated with the international anti-doping system.”
Jens Sejer Andersen, founder of “Play the Game,” a Danish initiative that aims to raise ethical standards in sports
“The question of Russian participation in the Olympics has been around for a while because of the revelations of how the Russian state and the Russian sports system had cheated with the international anti-doping system,” Andersen said.
Following the 2014 Winter Olympics, Russia was accused of running a state-sponsored doping program. As the evidence piled up, many Russian athletes were stripped of their medals.
In the 2018 Olympic games, the IOC implemented new restrictions.
“The Russian national anthem could not be played, the Russian flag could not be shown, but the athletes were still under the Russian Olympic Committee officially,” Andersen said.
But since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the IOC’s policies have shifted.
For the Paris Games, the Russian Olympic Committee has been banned. Russia will not participate in any team sports. Track and field athletes are also banned. The only Russian and Belarusian athletes who will be allowed to compete are those deemed “neutral” by an IOC review panel.
“These athletes must not have shown any sympathy for the war, they cannot have any relations to the military and they must be ready to appear as neutral athletes,” Andersen explained.
Those granted neutral status will appear under a neutral flag, and if they make it to the podium, their national anthem will not be played.
Currently, 36 Russian and 28 Belarusian athletes have been granted “neutral” status.
One of them is Russian cyclist Tamara Dronova.
“Going to the Olympics is a dream for any kid who gets into sports,” Dronova told The World.
Dronova is from Krasnozavodsk, a small town about 70 miles outside Moscow where a single mother raised her. When she was young, she watched the Olympics on television and said that the athletes seemed like superheroes and wanted to be like them.
“My mom always tried to give me as much as possible. She sacrificed to provide for me and encouraged me to try everything. Every sport and every activity,” Dronova said.
Dronova’s first sport was cross country skiing. Later, at 15, she got into cycling. Despite the late start, she was a natural.
She went on to win national championships and later participated in international competitions. Cycling became her career.
Leah Thomas of the United States, from left, Tamara Dronova of the Russian Olympic Committee, Tiffany Cromwell of Australia, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio of South Africa, Hannah Ludwig of Germany and Liane Lippert of Germany compete in the women’s cycling road race at the 2020 Summer Olympics, July 25, 2021, in Oyama, Japan.Michael Steele/Pool Photo via AP“Since I’m from a small town and a simple family, I used to think that making a career in sport was impossible and that making the Olympics was something unachievable,” Dronova said. “I thought that your parents had to be famous or that you had to be someone special.”
Despite her doubts, Dronova made it to the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.
And soon, she’ll be competing in Paris as a neutral athlete.
“At the moment, the situation is such that I have neutral status. It is what it is,” she said, adding that she’s an athlete, not a politician, and that the IOC didn’t directly ask her any questions about her political views.
“The original purpose of the Olympics was to unite people, to allow us to forget about problems, any differences in worldview, religion, race, or nationality, everything,” Dronova said. “It was about focusing on competition in sport and not anything else.”
But Keith Rathbone, senior lecturer of modern European history and sports history at Macquarie University in Sydney, said that sports are “inherently political, and you can’t extract them from that.”
Because of the Kremlin’s authoritarian political system, Rathbone said, all Russian athletes feel they need to fall into line.
“They’re all agents of the Russian state to some extent because the Russian state doesn’t allow them to be completely neutral, free and open,” he said. “And if they did, we would know because there would be athletes going, ‘Stop the war. This is madness. Why are we doing this?’ The fact that none of them are saying that it tells you everything you need to know. That they don’t feel free to say that.”
Because of this, Russian athletes like Dronova, who are deemed neutral, are caught in a difficult position. If they say or do wrong, they can get in trouble with Russian authorities or lose their neutral status with the IOC.
The World asked Dronova what it would mean to her if she won a medal at the Summer Games and found herself on a podium where the Russian national anthem was not played.
“It does mean something to me,” she said. “And in that case, I remember the anthem by heart.”
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The route from the capital Beirut to southern Lebanon takes you along the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea where on a recent Sunday, people had flocked to the beach to relax and sunbathe.
But a short distance from the beach, in southern Lebanon, it’s as if you’re in another country.
Israel and Hezbollah, the powerful Shia militia group in Lebanon, have intensified their attacks against each other in the months following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and Israel’s response in Gaza. Hezbollah says its rockets and drone attacks are a showing of support for the Palestinian people and that it won’t stop until the war in Gaza has ended.
The clashes, meanwhile, have had dire consequences for the people living along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Thousands fleeDaily airstrikes have forced about 150,000 people to flee their homes in the south, most of them to Marwanieh. Those who have the financial means and are lucky to find apartments, rent them. One group of people, though, has been staying at an old, abandoned hotel.
The town of Marwanieh, where people from southern Lebanon have taken shelter.Shirin Jaafari/The WorldHotel Montana is now home to about 60 families, according to Salam Nehme Baddredin, the head of the Committee for Crisis Management in the area.
Its owner hit financial troubles in 2005 and had to sell the building to the local municipality. Four years ago, Hotel Montana was used as a COVID-19 quarantine center. Today, it serves as a shelter for families caught in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
The entrance of Hotel Montana in Marwaniyeh, which houses displaced Lebanese families.Shirin Jaafari/The WorldThe three-story building with pink walls and marble floors has seen much better days, Baddredin said. When families started streaming in, it wasn’t safe or livable, so the committee had to repair the water tanks and power lines with the help of international nongovernmental organizations.
Hotel Montana was abandoned for years but now it is home to displaced families.Shirin Jaafari/The World“Most people here have lost their homes,” Baddredin explained. “Some have lost relatives and neighbors. Initially, we thought this was going to be a temporary situation but, as the weeks turned into months, it slowly became clear that people are not going back.”
Salam Nehme Baddredin, the head of the Committee for Crisis Management in the town of Marwanieh, has been working to make the abandoned hotel livable for displaced people.Shirin Jaafari/The WorldThis time is differentOccupying a room on the second floor was 57-year-old Adnan Hassan Khoshaysh, his wife and daughter.
They fled the village of Khiam, which is just 3 miles away from Lebanon’s border with Israel.
“Khiam is a dead place,” Khoshaysh said. “Everyone has left.”
Adnan Hassan Khoshaysh and his wife Um Ali in their room at Hotel Montana. The couple say they are hopeful they can return to their home in southern Lebanon.Shirin Jaafari/The WorldFor three months, he refused to move out of his home, hoping that the war would end quickly, like it did many times in the past. Khoshaysh, having lived all his life on the border with Israel, has seen many wars. The last time he was displaced was in 2006 during the monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah.
“I love my village,” he said, holding back tears. “I didn’t want to leave.”
It was only after his house was struck directly that he realized he could no longer stay. So, he packed his bags and left reluctantly.
“I love my village. I didn’t want to leave.”
Adnan Hassan Khoshaysh, resident of Hotel Montana displaced from southern Lebanon
His wife, Um Ali, who had been urging him for weeks, said she was glad that he was finally out of danger.
This time, Khoshaysh explained, the fighting has gone on longer, and there is no end in sight. In fact, every day it seems like Israel and Hezbollah are inching closer to an all-out war.
Work is being done at Hotel Montana to make it safe for displaced families in Lebanon.Shirin Jaafari/The WorldCalls to de-escalateIn recent days, the United States and Arab and European countries have tried to mediate between the two sides, urging them to de-escalate.
“Such a war would be a catastrophe for Lebanon,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said as he met recently with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon. “Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with terrible consequences for the Middle East.”
The few belongings that Um Ali and Adnan Hassan Khoshaysh were able to take with them as they fled their home in southern Lebanon.Shirin Jaafari/The WorldMeanwhile, Khoshaysh, who hasn’t been able to return to his home for five months, wonders if his olive and walnut trees are still standing. He thinks of his house, too, which was handed down to him from previous generations.
Adnan Hassan Khoshaysh had to flee his home in southern Lebanon after it was directly hit by an Israeli airstrike.Shirin Jaafari/The WorldBut that’s not all he worries about. He said that he doesn’t know the fate of his three cats: Loulou, Lashlousha and Mashmousha.
“They were born in my house,” he said. “I raised them, fed them and I became attached to them. Where are they now? Are they even alive?”
At one point, one of their neighbors was able to return to pick up some things and he stopped by their home and left some opened cans of tuna for the cats, Um Ali said. He also took some videos.
The video shows the destruction of their home. The strikes hit their son’s bedroom.
“When I see this,” Um Ali said, “I get goosebumps. We were so lucky no one was in the room at the time.”
Relatively safeLife at the Montana Hotel is not easy, Um Ali and her husband said. But at least it’s safe. The respite allowed them to hold a small celebration for their daughter’s wedding.
Um Ali proudly showed a video of the ceremony — the bride, in a large, flowy gown — held the hand of her husband. Both were smiling and behind them there were giant wedding sparklers.
Days in the decaying hotel can get long and boring, the couple said.
A group of people displaced from southern Lebanon play a game of cards to pass time at the Hotel Montana in Marwanieh.Shirin Jaafari/The WorldSometimes, the displaced families get together, though, and sip coffee in the yard. They sing to keep up their morale. Sometimes, they cry for those who have been killed in this war.
Despite the daily airstrikes, Khoshaysh and his wife said they have hope they will return soon, and he invites others to visit.
“You’ll see with your own eyes what a beautiful house I have.”
Related: As Hezbollah buries its fighters, supporters say they are defiant
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Outside the Our Lady of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Florianopolis, Brazil, a boy plays the accordion to a crowd under a big white tent. Around him, vendors sell corn, cakes, BBQ and fried empanadas.
A young boy performs with an accordion during a Festa Junina celebration in Florianopolis, Brazil.Michael Fox/The WorldIt’s a celebration of food, music and culture, but not the Brazilian culture many people think of. It’s called Festa Junina, or “June Festival,” Brazil’s traditional harvest celebration, and people dress like country folk and farmers in checkered shirts and frilly dresses to remember their ancestors who arrived in Brazil and cleared and tilled the land.
“I’m so happy,” said Cátia Prestes, a festival attendee. “I’m reliving the past: The music from the accordion. Inspired by the harvest. The agriculture. The people from the countryside. It’s such a mixture. Long live Brazil.”
Cátia Prestes (R) enjoys Festa Junina celebrations because it gives her a chance to relive Brazil’s past and celebrate the people from the countryside.Michael Fox/The WorldBrazilians have been celebrating this for the last month. Most schools and community centers hold their own parties, and the church also plays a central role.
Father Eugênio Luedke Filho leads the Our Lady of Sacred Heart Church, and he even wears a plaid shirt and straw hat to mark the occasion.
“It’s a time for the families to come together with traditional food, with traditional music, with traditional games for this time of the year,” he said. “It’s a time to bring family and community together and celebrate together.”
Father Eugênio Luedke Filho, who leads the Our Lady of Sacred Heart Church in Florianopolis, Brazil, said Festa Junina celebrations are meant to honor a series of saints whose days fall during the month of June.Michael Fox/The WorldHe explained the celebrations honor a series of saints whose holy days fall during June. The most important is Saint John, whose day falls on June 24, near the summer solstice and roughly halfway to Christmas.
A decorative sign reads, “Long Live St. John,” as locals gather near a school in Florianopolis, Brazil to celebrate Festa Junina. Michael Fox/The WorldIn southern Brazil, these festivities already have a distinct Christmas feel.
In a local school yard, people drink mulled wine and sing Festa Junina songs around a large bonfire. The fire is said to represent the flame that was lit by Saint John’s mother the night he was born.
One tradition of Festa Junina includes drinking mulled wine and singing Festa Junina songs around a large bonfire. The fire is said to represent the flame that was lit by Saint John’s mother the night he was born.Michael Fox/The World“I loved making the fire,” said Sergio Menezes. When he was young, he said, each neighborhood would compete to see who could build the best bonfire. “This is always a really happy time for me, representing renewal, hope, family — and festivity.”
Historians say Portuguese and Spanish immigrants brought the June Festival celebrations to Brazil when they colonized the country centuries ago. Over the years, their traditions were mixed with African and Indigenous practices. So now, in many schools, children dance around a maypole, and they also perform Maculelé, an Afro-Brazilian dance with sticks related to the martial art Capoeira.
Schoolchildren dance around a maypole, usually a tall wooden pole that is decorated for the occasion.Michael Fox/The World“It’s this mixture of all of these cultural elements that were brought here. And it’s so special and rich,” said Karina Hatta, a Brazilian artist of Japanese descent. “It seems like they brought everything, mixed it together and it worked out. Even though it’s cold, these festivities bring this inner warmth. This warmth of the spirit and union that is Brazilian.”
The celebrations are particularly huge in northeastern Brazil. Some towns hold massive carnival-like parties that are the biggest events of the year, and millions of people turn out. The region is also the birthplace of Forró, the traditional June Festival style of music. It’s said farmers and workers there would sing this as they gathered the crops.
During Festa Junina, you can find many people dressed as country folk or farmers in checkered shirts and frilly dresses.Michael Fox/The World“It’s a party for the saints,” said Lais Peres, another celebration attendee. “And it’s also for remembering northeastern Brazil. And all of the cultures. Every region of Brazil brings something different to the table.”
In the south, boiled Pinhão, a big tasty pine nut that is abundant this time of year, is on the menu.
Families watch as annual Festa Junina performances take place near a local schoolyard. Michael Fox/The WorldJulia Melo told The World she’s happy to pass down all these traditions to her daughter.
“We love the June festivals, because it’s different entertainment from what we have today, away from the screens and technology,” she said. “It’s a collective festival with good food and music that reflects really important values around unity and simplicity.”
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Eitan Davidi calls his home of Margaliot — a farming community facing Israel’s border with Lebanon — one of the most-peaceful places on Earth.
But as talk of escalation between Israel’s military and the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah ramps up, Davidi said he only sees one solution to keeping the peace: “We must have an all-out war.”
Davidi said he believes a war with Lebanon is the only way to restore peace to the Israel-Lebanon border.
Tensions have been rising in the border area since Oct. 8, when Hezbollah, backed by Iran, launched rockets in solidarity with the Palestinian people just a day after Hamas militants invaded southern Israel, taking more than 200 people into Gaza as hostages, during which about 1,200 people were killed.
In early June, Hezbollah launched more than 200 rockets — its most ever in a single day since the fire exchanges began — after Israel killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a targeted strike.
As the US, France and other nations try to defuse tensions between Israel and Lebanon, Davidi and others living along Israel’s northern border say that would be a mistake.
“[Hezbollah] has to understand they cannot feel free to attack the civilian community in the north of Israel, and we have to teach them a lesson once and for all,” he said.
The 54-year-old said he feels frustrated after months of attacks on his land. He is also annoyed with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), whom, he said, just stand idly by.
More than 80,000 people from Israel’s north have been displaced; precious agricultural land has been set ablaze; and the local economy is in shambles.
Davidi, fed up with the situation, said he even kicked IDF soldiers out of his community recently to send them a message.
“They came here and did nothing,” he said. “I’m asking the government to take responsibility and to send the army inside Lebanon to defend us.”
That may be Davidi’s take on the situation, but other people in northern Israel say they are more fearful about the prospect of an all-out war with Lebanon than anything else.
Schachar Gleiser, a sommelier at an upscale seafood restaurant in Akko’s old town, says he’s prepared to move in with relatives further south in the event of a full-on war with LebanonRebecca Rosman/The WorldFor weeks now, sirens have blared in Akko — located 15 miles from the border. But 38-year-old Shachar Gleiser, a sommelier at the upscale seafood restaurant Uri Buri, said they’re hardly audible from the old town where the restaurant is located.
“The sirens don’t really work here,” Gleiser said. “So, you don’t feel the stress.”
A self-described peace-loving Rastafarian, Glaiser said he isn’t optimistic about what’s to come. He revealed he has already prepared to move in with relatives in Caesarea, a town about 40 miles further south of Akko.
In the old city, merchants at the local souk, or shopping area, are also fearful of what’s to come.
Mohammed Husan Abu-Dabus has been running a fruit and vegetable stall in Akko’s old town for 44 years.Rebecca Rosman/The WorldMohammed Husan Abu-Dabus has run a fruit and vegetable stall in Akko for 44 years.
The 65-year-old said he heard an explosion just above his house the very same morning that The World spoke to him. It was a suspicious aerial target that was intercepted and landed in the Mediterranean Sea.
“You just get used to it,” he said.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country is prepared for “very intense action” in the north. He added that the government is gearing up to send more troops bordering Lebanon once the fighting in the Gaza Strip winds down.
Some of his right-wing Cabinet members have demanded a proactive strike, while the United States, France and other mediating countries hope they can curb an Israeli conflict with Hezbollah.
Many people in Akko, however, say the last thing Israel needs is another war on its hands. But, like Abu-Dabus, the local fruit vendor, many feel it’s inevitable.
In Uri Buri, kitchen worker Mohamed Hadad said that several weeks ago, he spent 12 hours helping put out a fire after a Hezbollah missile hit a nearby town.
Uri Buri restaurant in Akko.Rebecca Rosman/The World“It’s scary,” Hadad said, adding that he hopes everything will be over soon and people will be able to head back to their normal lives.
Yet, that’s not what he said that he expects. If there’s another missile strike, he said he’ll be ready to run straight toward the fire.
Related: As Hezbollah buries its fighters, supporters say they are defiant
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Vetrichelvi Chandrakala said that throughout her life, she’s fought for Sri Lanka’s Tamil people.
In her youth, that included serving as a soldier for the Tamil Tigers, known officially as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an insurgency that took on the government from 1983 until it was defeated in 2009.
But, Chandrakala’s service on the battlefield ended in 1993 when she sustained multiple injuries while training to handle explosives. She lost some of her hearing as well as some vision during the accident, and her right arm was amputated from just below her elbow.
Vetrichelvi Chandrakala says many Tamil women who acquired a disability during Sri Lanka’s civil war face a social stigma that makes it difficult to put the past behind them. Waruni Anuruddhka Chandrasena“The war was not a success for us,” the 50-year-old said. “If we had won, then maybe our wounds, pain and suffering might have been worth it.”
At least 20,000 civilians and LTTE fighters from Sri Lanka’s Northern Province acquired a disability during the decadeslong conflict, some local aid groups estimate. Another study indicates that “war-related disability has been stigmatized,” especially for women survivors.
Sri Lanka’s civil war ended 15 years ago, but for many, the trauma of decades of fighting hasn’t been adequately addressed. And now, climate change poses new risks, and some observers say people who acquired a disability during the conflict are most vulnerable.
Chandrakala said that many Tamil people have tried to put the past behind them, but sometimes, just a stranger’s stare or inappropriate question can evoke painful memories.
“We just have this feeling that we are marginalized victims now,” said Chandrakala, who works as a writer and advocate for Tamil people with a disability in Mannar, a district on the island nation’s northwest coast.
She added that many of these war survivors have experienced depression.
The psychological toll of nearly 30 years of fighting has received little attention, some analysts say.
Delsan Tharmaseeli worries that she could not save both of her children during an emergency Sameera WeerasekaraNiluka Gunawardena, who lectures in the disability studies department at the University of Kelaniya, explained that there are many unresolved issues from the war, including civilian casualties and disappearances that have resulted in a “ high degree of trauma and of post-traumatic stress disorder.”
But, she said that even less is understood about how new emergencies, in particular those caused by climate change in Sri Lanka, can retrigger those earlier traumas.
”If we talk about humanitarian disasters, with the history of the civil war in this country, the collective trauma that we have been through, all these things need to be considered,” she said.
As the Indian Ocean warms, observers warn that countries in the region will experience intensified weather.
A 2020 World Bank risk assessment of Sri Lanka notes that climate change will increase the chances and severity of flash floods, landslides and heat waves.
While global warming affects everyone, it impacts different groups of people in particular ways, explained Dr. Oshani Silva, who advises the Sri Lankan government and hospitals on how to prepare for mass casualty events.
For example, she said, women are more likely to be exposed to physical or sexual violence during evacuations and sheltering. And for people with a disability in Sri Lanka, the risks are “amplified” because of the lack of accessible emergency infrastructure, warning systems and information, Silva said.
“In our country’s context, I feel like if you have a disability, you are more vulnerable,” she said.
Silva explained that all of these risks are compounded by worsening weather and could be felt even more severely by those who’ve previously experienced traumatic events.
Delsan Tharmaseeli said that providing safety for her family during a storm concerns her the most.
Delsan Tharmaseeli lives in a low lying area in Mannar where a rain storm can quickly produce a flood Waruni Anuruddhka ChandrasenaThe 38-year-old, who was conscripted by the Tamil Tigers, said that she tries not to think much about the injury she sustained during the war in 2008 that necessitated the amputation of much of her left arm.
But when this area floods, some of those memories start coming back.
While walking alongside a pond behind her home in Mannar, where she grows bananas and other produce, she said that during a storm, water can rise up to her knees.
She said that she questions how she’d be able to save her two young daughters if her husband wasn’t around during such an emergency.
“During a flood, if I had both hands, I could carry one of my kids on each side,” Tharmaseeli said.
Just the thought of this scenario makes her feel sad and worried, she said.
“I’d have to leave one child behind while I carry away the other,” she said.
This report was supported by a Fulbright South and Central Asia Regional Research Award.
Waruni Anuruddhka Chandrasena and Shageetha Balachandran contributed to this story.
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Over the weekend, Sudanese rebels said they captured the key state capital of Singa in Sudan’s southeast, another grim milestone in fighting that has raged since April of last year. That’s when the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, went to war with a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Experts at the United Nations who monitor global hunger say the country is spiraling into a famine on a scale not seen in decades.
To understand the situation, The World’s host Marco Werman spoke with US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
Marco Werman: What is the US is doing about the conflict?Amb. Linda Thomas-Greenfield: The humanitarian situation there is the most dire in the world. This means that we have to ramp up our efforts to ramp up our engagements first to respond to the humanitarian situation. The US has given, most recently, about $315 million toward that effort. Secondly, we have to find a diplomatic solution. Getting the two parties to sit down at the table to have a ceasefire and figure out a path forward to stop the suffering.Right. And on the diplomacy front, the US seems to be organizing peace talks, but so far they’ve failed. Why is that? Who or what do you blame?Look, we have worked very, very closely with all of the parties in the region in the early Jeddah talks that did not succeed. But we are continuing to engage with the parties in the region. As you know, we have assigned the new special envoy, Tom Perriello, who has been working diligently with countries in the region to push forward more discussions that will bring the two parties to the table. Burhan refused to engage in the latest peace talks, and we have to continue to pressure him, as well as pressure the RSF to cease their attack on Al Fashir, which is causing so much misery for the people of Sudan.This is the most dire crisis in the world, you said. But evidently the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine come first on the diplomatic agenda. Isn’t the unfortunate reality that Sudan is far down the list of US and global priorities?Look, we can’t prioritize misery and we can’t prioritize pain. And what is happening in Sudan is as significant as what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in Ukraine. So, we’re focusing on all of it. You may recall that we passed a resolution calling for the situation in Al Fashir to cease on the same day, the same week that we had a resolution on the peace deal in Gaza. So, we’re not sacrificing one crisis for another. And I do appreciate your actually engaging with me today on Sudan, because part of the issue is getting the press, the international press, to pay attention to what is happening in Sudan. And we will continue to ramp up our efforts to ensure that this crisis not be forgotten.Leaders of humanitarian groups have accused world leaders of “going through the motions” of expressing concern over Sudan but failing to stop the violence and starvation. What can you point to that Washington has done that’s been effective in addressing this catastrophe in Sudan?Look, first and foremost, we have sanctioned a number of the parties who’ve been engaged in this fight on both sides. We have insisted in our engagements at the UN that other member states impose sanctions. And then, of course, the humanitarian assistance, we’re the leader there, and we’re encouraging other countries to provide humanitarian assistance. So, we have not forgotten Sudan. And I do want to use this opportunity to encourage others to give to this humanitarian crisis. People are starving, people are dying, and we have to keep pressuring parties in the region to put pressure on the two sides to cease the fighting.If we look at why this war keeps on going, we can look at the United Arab Emirates, which is the biggest foreign sponsor of the Rapid Support Forces, the RSF, who are behind much of the violence in Sudan. The UAE is also a US ally, but the UAE is reportedly disguising its weapons shipments as humanitarian aid. What is the Biden administration doing to call out the UAE for fueling the crisis in Sudan?We have directly engaged with the UAE at every level possible. We have called for an end to their support, and we’ve urged them to use their influence to press the parties to agree to a ceasefire. And we’ve made clear that the provision of arms to either side, because it’s not just what is being provided to the RSF, weapons are being provided to the national army as well, the SAF. And so, it’s important that weapons being provided to fuel this war stop being provided, and that we look at what we can do to get the two sides to sit down at the negotiating table.So, if we go back to January of 2022, a year and a half before the attacks on Israel and then the war in Gaza, even before Ukraine had consumed US attention, when Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok of Sudan, that brief period when it seemed democracy might have a chance there, Hamdok resigned and told the world he saw the country sliding to disaster. I want to ask you, what was the US preparing for back then?We were preparing to support Hamdok. We were supporting the civilian-run government. We were encouraging that government, so I have to say, we were extraordinarily disappointed when he felt that he had to resign. And we kept the pressure on the then-national army before they broke their discussions with the RSF to go back to supporting a civilian-led government. Clearly, we did not get there, but it was not through lack of trying.Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, one last question. Early in your diplomatic career, 30 years ago, you were in Rwanda when the genocide began there. There continues to be reflection among many, including US policymakers, and I suspect you’re one of them, why more wasn’t done to stop the killing there. Do you expect you’ll look back at Sudan with the same regrets?No I don’t. I think we have been extraordinarily proactive to push back on the warring parties. I think that was missing in Rwanda that many years ago, where I was sitting in the middle of this. I don’t think that we will have that same sense. But that said, the suffering that we see happening in Sudan right now is worthy of all of our attention. We have not avoided calling this what this is, a genocide in the making, and we’ve not avoided putting pressure on the two sides to in the conflict. So, I do see this in a completely different light.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Related: Journalist says parts of Sudan’s capital are now ‘almost unrecognizable’
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Kids play volleyball in the Panamanian village of Isberyala, while adults swing on hammocks in front of their homes as they try to cope with the tropical heat.
The cement houses in this new village are small with just two rooms each. But Jennifer Davies, a member of Panama’s Guna tribe, said that she is happy to be here.
“It’s safer for my kids,” Jennifer Davies said. “In our previous community, we were surrounded by water, and the sea would flood our streets sometimes.”
For more than a century, the Guna people have lived on a group of small islands known as the San Blas Archipelago. But the palm-fringed islands in the Caribbean are expected to sink in the following decades, as sea levels rise in Panama and other parts of Central America.
In June, a group of 300 families from Gardi Sugdub, one of the smallest islands in the archipelago, was relocated to Isberyala, a village on the mainland.
Officials in the nation of 4 million people say that this will be the first of at least 63 coastal communities in Panama that will have to relocate due to rising sea levels.
On the island of Gardi Sugdub, many homes were right next to the water which makes them prone to flooding.Manuel Rueda/The WorldGovernment studies suggest that Panama could lose up to 2% of its territory by 2050 as sea levels along its coastline continue to rise.
Ligia Castro, the climate change director at Panama’s Environment Ministry, said that although the country doesn’t generate much in the way of carbon emissions, it is vulnerable to warmer sea temperatures and rising sea levels — because the country is so narrow, with oceans on both sides.
As a result, “we need to come up with a strategy for people displaced by climate change,” Castro said. “We need to quantify the investment that will need to be made, and apply for resources from a damage fund that was created at the UN’s climate conference last year.”
Some houses in Gardi Sugdub are right next to the water, which makes them prode to flooding during storms and high tides. Manuel Rueda/The WorldPanama’s Ministry of Housing built Isberyala, which cost approximately $12 million. In the new community, there are 300 identical, cement homes with small yards in the front and plots of lands at the back, which can be used for agriculture, or even to extend the small houses.
Isberyala has a very different feel to Gardi Sugdub, with its dirt roads and homes next to the water and which two or three families often had to share.
Albertino Davies, one of the village’s elders (he isn’t a close relative of Jennifer Davies but many of the villagers share the same last name), said that the lack of space on Gardi Sugdub and the constant flooding during storms and high tides encouraged the community of 1,500 people to look for a solution.
“Our leaders got organized, and they asked for relocation,” Albertino Davies said as he hung from a red hammock in his new home. “We first presented the idea to the government in 2010 … and finally, it has become reality.”
Isberyala is made of identical concrete homes that have two rooms. The village cost about $12 million to build.Around the world, there are 400 communities that have relocated, or are planning to move due to weather hazards, according to the UN’s Platform on Disaster Displacement.
Experts say that there are many issues that Panama and other countries need to consider as they try to relocate villages affected by extreme weather.
“Planning a relocation is about much more than just rebuilding houses,” said Erica Bower, a researcher on climate displacement for Human Rights Watch.
“It’s about access to education; it’s about access to health care; it’s about preserving cultural heritage; it’s about every dimension of human needs.”
Villagers built a ceremonial house in Isberyala as part of an effort to maintain their traditions.Manuel Rueda /The WorldThe Guna placed a special emphasis on keeping their traditions alive as they planned their relocation to the mainland with Panama’s government.
In Isberyala, there’s a school where children will be taught in the Guna language and a large ceremonial house that has a roof made out of thatched palm.
Jose Davies, the village’s chief, or Saila (and Jennifer Davies’ father), said that the ceremonial house was built by the villagers themselves.
“Here we will hold our cultural events like we did on the island,” he said. “It is also the place where we welcome visitors.”
Johan Hermann said he was pleased with the new village’s public spaces, including a park for kids and a beach volleyball area. Manuel Rueda/The WorldThe village also has a burial ground, basketball court and park with a beach volleyball area.
But many issues still need to be sorted out in Isberyala. Currently, there’s no public transport to take villagers to a port, where some of them have fishing boats. It’s a half hour walk to get there.
A clinic that was supposed to be built next to the village still hasn’t been completed. And food is also hard to find because there aren’t any stores in the village yet.
At the volleyball court, Johan Hermann said that he is hoping these issues will be sorted out soon.
“We are a resilient people,” he said. “We will not just sit back and see what happens.”
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National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek is walking 24,000 miles from the Horn of Africa across Asia to the southern tip of South America. This is the same path our human ancestors took when they first settled the globe.
During his trek, Salopek has been writing about the people, history and land he encounters as a part of a project known as Out of Eden Walk.
“We’re standing in a fortress along the Silk Road called Ganish, which is more than a thousand years old and which controlled the major artery of trade north-south between western China, going all the way down to India,” Salopek documented in a video during his time in northern Pakistan in 2017.
He discussed his journey through Pakistan with The World’s Carolyn Beeler.
Carolyn Beeler: Talk to me about the route you took across this very mountainous region of northern Pakistan. The peaks are stunning. They look totally impassable. How did you decide where to walk? Paul Salopek: Yeah, well, I had no choice. I was coming down through Afghanistan, and there was only one way to get over into India, which is through this truly, truly extraordinary corner of the world, northern Pakistan, called Gilgit-Baltistan. And imagine Nepal … but very few people from the outside know about it. It has the highest concentration of 25,000-foot mountains anywhere in the world, including K2. Low valleys. And it was the only kind of bottleneck for me to squeeze through. I came down over a, I think it was like a 16,000-foot mountain pass from Afghanistan to reach the capital, Islamabad. Clawing the thin mountain air, the peaks of Cathedral Ridge, near the village of Passu, are a tourist magnet. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org. Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkSo, this area is in northern Pakistan, near the border with China, and you write in your dispatches that it’s held off would-be conquerors ranging from Alexander the Great to the 19th-century Sikhs. For 900 years, part of the area was the independent Kingdom of Hunza. Tell me about that kingdom. It was kind of a statelet, a mountain statelet, and kind of a medieval, feudal kingdom. And it was both a redoubt, a place that held off invaders, but also, paradoxically, a crossroads. So, it is part of the Silk Road, and it exploited that. They’re kind of the middlemen. It’s where you changed your mule caravans, carrying silks and porcelain and whatnot, going one direction or another. And they got rich off of this. And that attracted the attention of imperial powers, whether it was China or the British, more recently. And they held out until 1974. So, while you were walking in this area, you posted some amazing pictures of footbridges crossing rivers that cut through the mountains. They look like a lot of fun and a little terrifying to walk across. Tell me about the people who use them every day and who live in this region. Yeah, this is definitely not a place for [someone with] agoraphobia. If you have trouble with heights, you might end up walking through this whole region looking up, not down. These footbridges span hundreds of yards across these chasms with roaring glacial rivers. And the people who use them are local pastoralists. They are still pushing yaks around over these snowfields. I’ve met people who are carrying enormous loads of hay. One of Gilgit-Baltistan’s many suspension bridges sways over the Passu River. The remote alpine region in Pakistan is seeing a new tourist boom. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org. Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkYou filmed one couple you met lifting these heavy loads of hay you’re talking about. So what you could see if you were looking at this video is a man and a woman struggling to lift these huge bundles of wild hay that look like they’re about twice the size of their bodies onto their backs. They’re laying down on the bundles and then rocking forward to stand up in a movement that looks like they’ve done it thousands of times. Tell me about this particular couple. They were in their 70s. These bundles, as you describe, are about the size of industrial refrigerators. And I tried to lift them. It’s not in the video, but I said, “Hey, you know, I have just been walking out of Africa, you know, like, I’ve got lots of experience. Let me try switching my backpack for what you’re carrying.” I could not even get off the ground. It takes a certain kind of acrobatic balance to rock yourself forward and back to lift these things off the ground. And this elderly woman, just again, she put me in the shade.A Wakhi farmer in the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan totes nearly a hundred pounds of hay about two miles to his house. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkOne of the things that really struck me about what you wrote about this area is the local butter and how people store it for decades for later use. Tell me how they do that. Yes. You’re talking about maltash. The famous maltash. There’s no refrigeration historically in this region. So, people learn to bury their dairy products in the ground. And in this case, they bury it under the central square of this little village. Every family had a flagstone, and underneath each flagstone, in the central kind of square, was a hole about two feet deep, in which there was a birch bark-wrapped lump of butter that had been there anywhere from 10 years up to 50 years. And it was the way they preserved it. And the older the butter got, it was like wine, the more flavorful it got. I tasted some. It basically tasted a bit like sour candles to me.So, did every family have several packets of butter, and they unearthed one just whenever they needed more butter? Exactly. It’s like a communal refrigerator that you walk on top of. And, you know, I said, “How can you tell which is your flagstone?” Because they’re unmarked. Just imagine these gray flagstones with their odd shapes, rhomboid. And they look at me crazy, like, “How would you not know your own refrigerator?”A lump of aged butter wrapped in birch bark. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkSo, we’ve been talking about how some of these communities are still quite isolated, but I understand that the Karakoram Highway connects western China with Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. It’s bringing more tourists to this area, including those ancient villages the road runs through. What has the impact been on people who live there? Yeah, this highway has been there a while, but it’s been expanded and widened by the Chinese. This highway project from western China was one of the pioneering steps of China’s Belt and Road project. You may recall that China, about a decade ago launched this massive, nearly global project to build communications and trade corridors from China to other corners of the world. Well, it was sort of inaugurated in northern Pakistan. And what’s happened along with building, you know, improving some dams, laying optic fiber cables and whatnot, improving a port … was the Karakoram Highway. And what used to take a long time to drive, now you can get up within a day of the capital, which has opened up this quite isolated corner of the Himalayas to more than a million and a half tourists every year. These communities are living in a golden age of tourism. But it’s also putting enormous strain on the local ecosystem, in terms of trash and the trampling of very delicate, high-altitude alpine wetlands. So, I met one local administrator who’s like, at night, Googling Nepal to try to figure out Nepal’s problems and see how they can solve some similar ones with over-tourism in this region of northern Pakistan. Parts of the interview have been edited for length and clarity
Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
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Japan is entering what some sociologists call a “marriage ice age.”
Nearly one third of Japanese people under 40 have never been in a relationship at all. This is, according to the country’s leaders, a crisis. Fewer marriages mean fewer kids — and a stark population decline threatening the economy and Japan’s entire way of life. That’s why the government is trying its hand at matchmaking.
Most Japanese prefecture-level governments now offer “marriage support,” usually online-based systems that pair singles looking for romance. Saitama prefecture, population 7 million, is one of them. (If Tokyo is New York City, Saitama is like New Jersey.)
The World spoke to Saitama officials to learn how Japanese government matchmaking differs from popular dating apps such as Tinder.
112 questions Anyone applying to Saitama’s matchmaking service must upload a selfie, proof of income and government identification verifying their age and height. They’ll also have to answer an extensive personality test. Sample questions include: If you make a mistake, and someone calls you out, do you try to fix it? Do you struggle to explain what makes you happy in life? When you embark on new tasks, do you feel confident?
Once the answers are submitted, the system’s algorithm will produce three potential matches, each with a photo and basic details: height, career, age and little else.
Applying costs the equivalent of $70.
Selfie assistance Japanese government matchmaking has a human touch. Applicants can visit the center and seek advice if they’re not getting dates. “We might have to say, ‘You’re being too picky about age,’” said Akuto Kayo, a Saitama Marriage Center administrator. “Some men also need help with their selfies — they take photos that don’t look inviting — so, we’ll help take a brighter, better photo. We want them to make a good first impression.”
A tutorial showing how NOT to take a selfie — for applicants struggling to find a match.Saitama Marriage Support CenterNo chatting before the date Unlike Tinder and similar apps, Japanese government matchmaking doesn’t allow couples to text online before the date. An applicant receives three matches, chooses one and — if the match also wants to go on a date — the system spits out a location and a time to meet. That’s it. No interminable chatting beforehand.
How good is the algorithm at selecting matches? Not bad, according to Erina Kato, a former applicant. She met her match outside a cake shop, went out for dinner and, by the end of the date, “I felt like I was meeting an old friend. Someone I’ve known a long time.”
They’re now married.
It’s not for hookups Japan’s government wants to facilitate marriages — and ultimately kids — so, the system disincentivizes casual encounters. It’s assumed that people only looking for sex won’t answer an extensive questionnaire, nor submit government documents.
There are anti-creep safeguards Saitama’s matchmaking system helps people guard their privacy. Singles can go on a first date without disclosing much about their lives. Only upon the second date are fuller biographical details — including complete names — revealed to both parties. Kayo, the administrator, said, “If you’ve met up once, but the other person can’t get over you, they have no way to find out who you are.”
But does it result in more babies?According to Pew Research Center studies of US couples, roughly 10% of American married couples met through a dating app. In Japan, the figure is closer to 25%, though that includes all matchmaking services, both government-assisted and for-profit apps.
Saitama’s matchmaking center, in the past six years, has facilitated more than 12,000 dates, but this led to only about 500 marriages. As for how many of those couples have had children, the center actually doesn’t know. The matchmaking center is fixated on privacy and deletes each applicant’s profile once they’re on the marriage track.
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Public toilets. At best, they’re functional. At worst, dirty, dark and unsafe. But in Shibuya, one of the busiest wards in Tokyo, officials want public toilets to inspire wonder.
On a new tour, they’re showing off 17 bathroom facilities designed by world-class architects. One is housed inside a glowing cube. Another resembles a fairy-like woodland dwelling. And yet another toilet, operated by voice, will clean your backside on command. All the toilets are free to use, and many are sited next to hectic roads or train stations.
One of 17 public toilets in Tokyo designed by top architects. This bathroom contains a voice-operated commode.Courtesy of Tokyo Toilet ProjectOfficials in Shibuya claim the “iconic” toilets give a “new face” to Tokyo.
The project’s first toilets were unveiled in 2020, but the latest installations debuted late last year.
A man gets seen through the transparent toilet as he unlocked the door after use at Haru-no-Owaga Community Park in Tokyo on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020. The walls of two newly installed public toilets in Tokyo’s Shibuya neighborhood are see-through before people enter but turn opaque when the doors are closed and locked from the inside. The so-called transparent toilets were designed by award-winning Japanese architect Shigeru Ban for a project organized by The Nippon Foundation that redesigned 17 public toilets in the neighborhood.Hiro Komae/AP/FileOnly recently has the local government corralled Japanese volunteers to present the toilets to tourists willing to pay a $30 fee.
Architect Sou Fujimoto — who designed a toilet partly inspired by ancient Roman fountains — told The World he hoped to redefine street-side bathrooms and create something “beyond the normal, dirty public toilet.”
Listen to the full story by clicking on the blue player above.
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To produce cava — a unique sparkling wine similar to France’s champagne — Sant Sadurní d’Ainoa vineyard worker Antonio Dominguez said that irrigating is forbidden.
The grapes must depend solely on rainfall.
Otherwise, Dominguez said, “We’d lose the Denomination of Origin. We’d be making just another sparkling wine.”
A sign welcoming visitors to Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, the “Capital of Cava.”Gerry Hadden/The WorldDenomination of Origin is one of Spain’s regulatory systems. It guarantees that a wine is produced entirely in a designated region and follows local regulations.
Dominguez said it has rained some in recent weeks, but not nearly enough to water the cava grapevines.
“The oldest grape vines here are 30 or 40 years old, with really deep roots,” he said. “The bit of rain that’s fallen isn’t reaching and replenishing the subsoil. It stays on the surface.”
Dead and dying grape vines dot the cava vineyards of Catalonia. Desperate vintners have resorted to amputating some branches so that others might survive and produce grapes.Gerry Hadden/The WorldCatalonia’s cava vineyards cover about a hundred thousand acres, and one out of three grapevines in the northeast region have perished since a drought started in 2020. It’s been especially devastating for cava vintners because they’re not allowed to water their grapes.
Dominguez has been working in the cava vineyards for 40 years. He said he’s never seen a crisis like this. Nor such desperate measures to salvage the vines.
Antonio Dominguez has been working in the cava vineyards for 40 years. He says he’s never seen a crisis this bad. Due to a drought that began in 2020, one in three grape vines here has dried out and died.Gerry Hadden/The WorldOf the two branches that each grapevine has, he said, they have to amputate one so that the other can survive and produce grapes.
Dominguez works for cava-producer Freixenet. Freixenet exports its sparkling beverage worldwide. But with production off by around 40% this year, the firm has furloughed some 600 employees, including Dominguez.
Cavas Freixenet is one of the region’s largest cava producers and exporters.Gerry Hadden/The WorldThe knock-on effects of the crisis are rippling across the cava villages of this region, called the Penedès.
At Gust de Poble, a cava shop in Sant Sadurní d’Ainoa, owner Guillem Tena said fewer grapes have created a cava shortage, which has driven prices up. Local shoppers now hesitate before buying, he said.
You can tell a top quality cava by its tiny bubbles and subtle bouquet.Gerry Hadden/The WorldPeople in nearby villages are distraught because cava, to them, isn’t just something you sip with lunch. It’s inseparable from their history. And identity.
In Sant Sadurní, there’s an interactive museum dedicated to the drink.
A display of grape varieties in an interactive cava museum in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, Catalonia, Spain.Gerry Hadden/The WorldOne fun fact you learn at the museum is that when cava was invented in the late 19th century, so was its standard ¾ of a liter bottle. Back then, that was the recommended daily allowance for wine — about six glasses per person.
But the museum’s highlight is a tiny, yellow sap-sucking insect called the phylloxera. The pest inadvertently arrived in Europe in the 1850s by boat in a shipment of plants from the US, explained museum guide Laia Altisén.
A 1,500-pound version of the tiny insect phylloxera. Phylloxera nearly wiped out Europe’s vineyards, including the cava grapevines, 150 years ago. During yearly village celebrations in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, townsfolk roll out the giant float, dress up as the insect and shoot off fireworks to celebrate their victory over the plague.Gerry Hadden/The World“Within five years, the phylloxera wiped out 90% of our vineyards,” Altisén said. “Today, during our yearly town fiestas, we celebrate our victory over the plague. And the fact that we can still make a living off of cava.”
At these fiestas, townsfolk dress up as the yellow invader and swarm, bug-like, through the streets, shooting fireworks and dancing. The US was the source of the plague, but it also provided the solution. American grapevines were mostly resistant to phylloxera. Europe saved its remaining grapevines by grafting them onto imported Yankee rootstocks.
But this latest drought, worsened by climate change, experts say, is a more formidable enemy.
Dominguez says he and hundreds of furloughed Freixenet employees have had their hours slashed and are living off partial salaries and government support. But that’s only until the end of the year when the furlough deal expires.
“We’re ok for now, in terms of our wages, he said, but what will happen to us in January, or February, and beyond?”
Even if the rains return to normal, he said, it’ll be at least a couple of harvests before the ground is saturated enough for the vineyards to bounce back.
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In soccer-obsessed Argentina, there’s little place for other sports, and baseball is no exception. The average Argentine knows very little about it, and there’s only one baseball field in the capital, Buenos Aires, a city with close to 16 million people.
But in the past few years, baseball has been attracting more players and more fans in the South American country.
Roberto Braccini, president of Argentina’s National Baseball Federation attributes the new trend to the arrival of Venezuelan immigrants to Argentina.
Young Venezuelan baseball players pose together before a game. Tibisay Zea/The WorldClose to 8 million Venezuelans have left their country over the past decade. The vast majority of them have settled in South America, where they’ve carried on their passion for baseball — in countries where soccer dominates.
About a quarter million of displaced Venezuelans now live in Argentina. Among them, talented young baseball players.
“The arrival of Venezuelan players raised the competitive level in Argentina, it brought more quality and quantity,” Braccini said.
Posing with the background of the team is Roberto Braccini, head of Argentina’s Baseball Association.Tibisay Zea/The WorldIn a recent game in the Deportivo Daom field in Buenos Aires, most of the players were from Venezuela.
Luis Cova, a 9-year-old in his uniform, was warming up before the game. He said he’s been playing baseball since he was 3 years old.
“When I grow up, I want to play professional ball in the United States,” Cova said. He dreams about meeting his idol, Venezuelan outfielder Ronald Acuña, Jr. with the Atlanta Braves.
Baseball player, Luis Cova, is all smiles as he prepares to practice.Tibisay Zea/The WorldCova and his family moved to Argentina in 2018, running away from repression and economic hardship. His father, Carlos Cova, shouted words of encouragement from the stadium’s bleachers.
“Baseball is everything for us in Venezuela,” Carlos Cova said. He used to play baseball back home. “It’s in our blood.”
Carlos Cova was surprised to learn that his two sons were able to continue practicing baseball in Argentina. But still, he said it hasn’t been quite the same as back home.
He pointed out that the competition level isn’t as high as it is in Venezuela, and that there are limitations for immigrants to represent a foreign country.
A group of Venezuelan immigrants before a baseball game between local teams in Buenos Aires’ only baseball field, Daom Sports Club.Tibisay Zea/The WorldLast year, Carlos Gimenez, a young Venezuelan pitcher, became the first Venezuelan to debut on the Argentinian National Baseball Team. “It’s not easy for many Venezuelans, because they need to get Argentine citizenship before they can join a national delegation, and that process can take time,” Braccini said.
About half of the baseball players in Argentina come from Venezuela, according to Braccini.
Venezuelan players in Argentina say the sport has been a great way to integrate into the new country.
Players with Daom Sports Club during a training session in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Tibisay Zea/The WorldMateo Garcia, an Argentinian player, said baseball has allowed him to get to know Venezuelan culture.
“I’m with Venezuelans all the time,” he said, “I learned some Venezuelan slang, Venezuelan food and my friends inspired me to get serious about baseball.”
The rise of baseball, thanks to Venezuelan immigrants, is also happening in Colombia and Peru, all countries where soccer dominates.
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At a park in northern Riga, Latvia, families gather for folk singing and dancing, paired with traditional Latvian midsummer snacks.
In Latvia, the summer solstice holiday has two names, Jāņi and Līgo, and is celebrated June 23-24.
But the holiday spirit is already in the air throughout the week leading up to that night.
Traditional Latvian folk dancing during summer solstice celebrations at Ziemeļblāzma Park in northern Riga, Latvia.Daniel Ofman/The World“Mostly, we are sitting around the fireplace and cooking some special like Jāņu siers, a special cheese with cumin, and drinking beer,” explained Antra Drege, one of the event organizers.
The Jāņu siers cheese-eating and beer-drinking happens over the course of many hours.
“The tradition is that you have to stay awake all night to see the three-colored sun rising,” Dredge said. “This is all about magic, rituals, health and fertility, all those traditions.”
Many of these practices stem from old Latvian pagan traditions connected to nature, she said. The rituals were preserved and passed down from generation to generation.
Traditional Latvian folk dancing during summer solstice celebrations at Ziemeļblāzma Park in northern Riga, Latvia.Daniel Ofman/The WorldOne of the ways that people connect to nature during Jāņi is by making flower crowns and wreaths.
Baiba Sporge, weaving a flower crown as she explained to about a dozen children surrounding her, said that the flower crown has a lot of meaning because, in her tradition, the process of weaving it together symbolizes the making of a family.
Baiba Sporge teaches people, mostly kids, how to weave and braid flower crowns and wreaths.Daniel Ofman/The WorldSporge has been making flower crowns since childhood and midsummer is her favorite time of year.
“This is the biggest festival, the biggest thing that all Latvians are waiting [for],” Sproge said. “Christmas is not comparing to this one, not even close.”
Most Latvians share the tradition of making a bonfire, dancing around and jumping over it. But Sporge said that what she’s doing right now, teaching kids how to make flower crowns, is one of the most meaningful aspects of the holiday.
Flowers used to make head crowns and wreaths during summer solstice events in Riga, Latvia.Daniel Ofman/The World“I’m very happy that the kids are coming, and they’re learning from me,” she said. “Because I know that when they are grown up, they will know how to make it, and they can teach their kids. This kind of thing is very special for our next generation.”
Sporge said that in addition to making flower crowns, eating cheese and dancing around bonfires — many families have unique Jāņi practices.
“In our place, we have a special ritual for sunrise,” said Iveta Vitola, who’s also attending the midsummer event, describing one of her family’s traditions. “We are sitting on the ground and screaming very loud, it’s very special. Because everybody, neighbors know, four o’clock, four fifteen, you should be there.”
Iveta Vitola said that the summer solistice festivities aren’t just fun for her — they’re also therapeutic.Daniel Ofman/The WorldFor Vitola, this holiday, and that screaming, isn’t just a fun ritual. Over the years, it’s become meaningful, even therapeutic, for her.
“I think for me it’s like, to scream, and to dance, and to sing, and to just be in the nature, all the night,” she said.
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Sameeha El Kafri wipes away tears as she tries to cook lunch for her family.
It’s been three months since she has had contact with her son, Yassin.
In March, the 31-year-old father of three was arrested during a raid of their family home. He’s been in administrative detention since then, meaning the Israeli military is holding him without charges.
Sameeha El Kafri shares a video of her son, Yassin, who has been held in Israeli administrative attention without charge since March.Rebecca Rosman/The WorldEl Kafri opens up a TikTok video of her son made just a few days before his arrest — he’s playing in a park with his three young kids.
“He’s a family man,” she said, shaking her head in confusion.
Yassin El Kafri, 31, is one of an estimated 9,300 Palestinians from the occupied territories who have been arrested since Oct. 7.Rebecca Rosman/The WorldMore than 9,300 Palestinians living in the West Bank have been arrested since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, according to figures from the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), a Ramallah-based group that monitors arrests.
“We have seen about a 100% increase [in arrests] compared to the same period last year,” said Abdullah al-Zaghari, who has been working with PPS for over 30 years.
“They’re held without trial, without anything,” he said.
Abdullah Al-Zaghari, with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoners Society rights group, says there has been a 100% increase in the number of Palestinians detained by Israel since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.Rebecca Rosman/The WorldIsraeli officials maintain the arrests are in large part tied to curbing an increase in, quote, “suspected terrorist activity” since the Oct. 7 attacks in which Hamas militants took more than 200 hostages into Gaza and during which around 1,200 people were killed in Israel.
But Al-Zaghari said the Israeli government is motivated by something else.
“[Israel] has a mentality of revenge against what happened in Gaza in the beginning of the war,” he said.
Some analysts have suggested that Israel is arresting so many people so it has thousands of less threatening prisoners to exchange in a swap with Hamas in an eventual ceasefire.
Israel has reason to be cautious. In 2011, Israel handed over more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one hostage being held by Hamas — an Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit. One of those handed over back to Hamas in the exchange was Yahya Sinwar, who would go on to become the architect of the Oct. 7 attacks.
Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, chairs a meeting with leaders of Palestinian factions at his office in Gaza City, April 13, 2022.Adel Hana/AP/FileBut Al-Zaghari insists that still doesn’t justify the number of what he calls arbitrary arrests. He also said recently released detainees from the West Bank and Gaza have testified that they’ve been beaten, deprived of food and water and forced to sit in overcrowded cells with no electricity.
Earlier this month, the Israeli military released a statement saying it was investigating allegations of mistreatment of detainees and would share details in a forthcoming report.
As more prisoners are arrested, anger has been growing across the West Bank, while morale about the possibility of their release has gone down.
Just a few dozen people showed up to a weekly rally in support of Palestinian prisoners being held in central Ramallah.
A weekly gathering is held in central Ramallah in support of Palestinians sitting in Israeli jails. Some 9,300 Palestinians in the occupied territories have been arrested, largely for security reasons, since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.Rebecca Rosman/The WorldSome people that watched from the sidelines in nearby shops told The World they were fed up with the current Palestinian Authority government and see the protests as ineffective. Others said they feared joining these rallies could lead to their arrests.
But 57-year-old Mukbel Barghouti said he’s been coming to these protests every week, despite the low turnout.
Mukbel Barghouti, whose son has been in administrative detention for six months, says he’s hopeful there will soon be a large prisoner swap as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.Rebecca Rosman/The WorldHe said his son has been under administrative detention for six months, and he has no idea what his condition is — he hasn’t been allowed to visit him.
Then there’s Mukbel’s brother, Marwan Barghouti, who is perhaps the most famous Palestinian sitting in an Israeli jail.
Thirty years ago, Marwan Barghouti was poised to succeed Yasser Arafat as the new head of the Palestinian Authority. But that was scrapped when he was arrested in the early 2000s on terrorism charges.
Senior Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti appears at Jerusalem’s court, Jan. 25, 2012. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has announced that the first presidential and parliamentary elections since 2006 will be held later in 2021. The voting is seen as a key step in mending a rift between Abbas’ Fatah party that rules the West Bank and the Islamic militant group Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip. (Bernat Armangue/AP/File)His brother Mukbel believes that now — more than ever — is actually a moment of hope for Marwan and the thousands of other Palestinian prisoners living in Israeli jails.
“I want them to know that their freedom is very close,” Barghouti said.
He — and many others — believe that their release could be made under a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in exchange for the remaining hostages being held in Gaza.
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The federal holiday of Juneteenth commemorates a milestone in the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. It marks the end of legalized slavery in the US. But that history left a bitter legacy that persists both in the country and around the globe.
The World’s host Marco Werman spoke about the holiday with Howard French, who wrote about the global impact of slavery in his 2021 book, “Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War.”
French is also a former New York Times correspondent and currently a professor of journalism at Columbia University.
Cover of “Born in Blackness,” by Howard W. French, published Oct. 12, 2021.Courtesy of W. W. Norton & CompanyMarco Werman: You write so eloquently, Howard, about how Africa’s histories are histories of erasures. As Americans celebrate emancipation, what do you think are some of the threads of this story that maybe have gotten lost?Howard French: I think the first and most important thread is the very origin story of the West and of the modern world. And the thesis of my book is that this begins with Europe’s contact with Africa. It starts with the idea that there was this thing called the Age of Exploration and the Iberians, and in particular the Portuguese, were hellbent on reaching Asia. And it was Asia as a kind of monomania, and that Africa was nothing but a geographical obstacle in the way — a place of no inherent interest of its own, where Europe didn’t really learn anything, didn’t really gain in any way and had no importance historically speaking. And so, the book is a kind of sustained assault on that idea, which makes the case that the Europeans, the Iberians, not only didn’t rush onward to Asia, they dwelled for quite some time and with extraordinarily interesting results in Africa prior to their pursuit of wealth in Asia. That’s sort of the biggest erasure in history. And then, subsequently, Portugal is born as a major modern power because of the wealth, first in gold that it gets out of Africa, and then by founding the most important institution, economically speaking, of the Modern Age, which is chattel slavery. And this happens on the tiny island of Sao Tomé. And it changes everything, it changes the European diet, it gives rise to European democracy. Perversely enough, it makes the Western Hemisphere, the United States and all of the continents of North and South America, economically viable through the tragedy of slavery. And it fosters the birth of this term we throw around very loosely without really thinking about what it means, and that is “the West.” The West was born with the catalyst of African labor. That’s the really important point. I think the labor of enslaved people from Africa led to this age of modernity and massive national fortunes. So, we read in historical accounts of how the institution of slavery devastated societies in West Africa, how it ripped apart communities and threw local economies and agriculture into disarray. How do you see the impact of that disruption continuing today in West Africa?I see it everywhere I look. You know, the modern world kind of comes together and gives birth to nation-states and borders and nationalities and flags and things like that. Europe was able to do that, in large part, on the basis of wealth extracted in resources and labor from Africa. But the extraction of those things from Africa impoverished the continent in lasting ways. Healthy young men and women of childbearing age were being extracted from West and Central Africa, over 100,000 people every year, sometimes 200,000 people a year, for a whole century.Extraordinary.And this has a very long tail.In the modern day, in the wake of this human and economic plunder of Africa, there’s a global movement seeking reparations. There was even a summit, as you know, last year in Ghana, where the African Union and Caribbean nations came together to try and persuade European nations to pay for their “historical mass crimes.” Where does that movement stand today? Is it gaining traction?I think about a month ago, Portugal, which was the largest slave-trading nation in history, came very close, it seemed, to issuing a formal apology from the government, recognizing, at least in principle, its obligation to pay some kind of reparations. At the very last minute, that came undone. This is kind of a Charlie Brown situation, where we walk right up to the precipice of action on reparations over and over and over again, and we never quite really get there.A photo of the Dutch royal family’s Golden Carriage, at the Amsterdam Museum in Amsterdam, decorated with a painting that has drawn fire from critics who say it glorifies the Netherlands’ colonial past, including its role in the global slave trade, January 19, 2022.Peter Dejong/AP/File photo*We should point out, too, that the Catholic Church provided a crucial papal endorsement in the 15th century for the Portuguese to go to West Africa and conquer. What overtures has the Church made toward reparations of some sort?The Catholic Church was, in the 16th century, one of the largest operators of chattel slave plantations in the New World. The Jesuits, in particular, operated immense plantations in Mexico using African chattel labor. The same was true in various other places, from what is today the Dominican Republic and Haiti, meaning Hispaniola, to Brazil, on and on and on. So, the Catholic Church didn’t just give an ideological or theological blessing to the enslavement of Africans, but it also directly profited under the most brutal of circumstances. The Catholic Church has, I think, condemned the evil of slavery and its language. But I don’t think that the Catholic Church has done anything like it has done, let’s say, with the sexual abuse of young people by priests, and saying that we actually have a fiduciary obligation.As you think about the narrative of the enslavement of people and how it ended, how that story is told by the West and how it was experienced by Africans and African Americans, how do you think about Juneteenth, Howard? What reflections come to you on this day?I have to be candid with you. As an African American, I did not grow up participating in Juneteenth. I’m delighted that Juneteenth has taken on the popularity that it seems to have belatedly acquired. I think it’s a wonderful window into the complexity of our history with regard to slavery. We imagine that slavery ends with the Northern victory in the Civil War and, of course, Juneteenth helps us understand that isn’t true. We should also understand, I think, that slavery doesn’t, in fact, end with Juneteenth. The struggle for African Americans to acquire true citizenship extends well into the recent past and, some would even say, into the present. I grew up in a society where discrimination against Black people was not simply a matter of custom or practice but was de jure, meaning it was the law. It was legally allowed. I witnessed this as a young man, as a child in the Virginia of my parents. And anyone my age and indeed people somewhat younger than me, all grew up with this in their faces. And so, the beauty of Juneteenth is to help complexify a little bit the stories that we tend to often iron out and simplify.Juneteenth occurred a century and a half ago, but its wide observance as a holiday is recent. What do you think people need to do now to make it meaningful, rather than just another federal holiday?Well, you know, I had an experience just this morning that speaks to this. I’m a photography buff. There’s a photography blog that I’ve read for many, many years — a little blog by a very smart, curious-minded guy. And he said something that jarred me. He was encouraging readers of the blog to acknowledge that it was Juneteenth and that this was a big deal for African Americans. But he said, this is an exclusive — I don’t think he meant malice by it — but this is an exclusively Black holiday, he used that phrase. I do not think that’s how we should understand Juneteenth. I think that Juneteenth should be understood, if it is to be worthwhile, as an American holiday and that it is a celebration, or it should be a celebration, of America’s complexity and a recognition of how America did not transit, as in a sort of one fell swoop from one state of enslavement of African Americans into another state of pristine freedom for African Americans. And that that’s really never how history works. You know, this is constant work, and the constant work is not the work of Black people. The constant work, if we are to be a nation, is the work of all Americans. And so, remembering this just as something for Black people is to devalue it.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. AP contributed to this report.*
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Samah Salaimeh and her family moved to the Oasis of Peace, an intentional, cooperative community that sits on the Green Line, which delineates Israel and the occupied West Bank, about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in 2000, after the start of the second intifada.
“So, in many ways, this was perfect timing to take my family and to find a place here and [leave] the burning Jerusalem behind,” Salaimeh said.
The community — known as Wahat al-Salam in Arabic and Neve Shalom in Hebrew — was founded by Father Bruno Hussar in 1972.
Unlike in most of the rest of the country, in the Oasis of Peace, Arab and Jewish neighbors live next door to each other; there are signs on buildings in both Arabic and Hebrew; and there’s a bilingual, bicultural school on site. But there are also difficult conversations, uncomfortable moments and struggles — especially since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7.
“We have a family member in Wahat al-Salam — Neve Shalom — she lost 70 people — 70 family members,” said Salaimeh, who is the village’s co-director of its education institutions.
A sign on the road directs people to the Oasis of Peace, called Wahat al-Salam in Arabic and Neve Shalom in Hebrew.Sarah Ventre/The WorldEldad Joffe, chair of the village council, started his term on Oct. 7. Amid the tumult, he said that within a week, the village started organizing meetings for community members to discuss what was happening.
“Fear, anger, disappointment, concern. You know, all those feelings. That’s what hit us,” Joffe said. “At the beginning, we met Jews separately, and Palestinians separately, to ventilate, to talk, to try and understand — what are we going through?”
Joffe said that the community had two of those meetings in the first week, and then, for the third meeting, everyone gathered together. He said that community members have met eight times in the last eight months.
Lush farmland just outside of the Oasis of Peace.Sarah Ventre/The World“It didn’t create a separation. It didn’t split us apart. But it was hard for us to talk.”
Joffe said it was hard because, at the beginning, there was a sense that Palestinian community members couldn’t identify with the feelings of Jewish community members. Then, as the war progressed, there was a feeling that Jews couldn’t identify with the feelings of Palestinians.
Tzuf Ben Ishay was raised in this village.
The village has a number of communal gathering spaces for residents and visitors alike.Sarah Ventre/The World“We have, in the past few months, gone through the process of bereavement and reconciliation in our own village. That each side that lost so much during Oct. 7th and in Gaza after Oct. 7th, they both came together and expressed their grief, their pain, their unbearable loss and suffering,” Tzuf Ben Ishay said.
The White Dove is a communal space and event hall in the village.Sarah Ventre/The WorldEven though the community’s mindset about peace is unique, and its residents are self-selected, Tzuf Ben Ishay’s mom, Ariela Ben Ishay, said it can still be hard.
“People think it might be just an easy thing to talk about it, to give flowers to each other. They have a very idealistic view of what it is to have chosen to live together. But they should expect to have it be complex. They should expect to have conflictual issues and to know that these discussions … are going to be difficult conversations,” Ariela Ben Ishay said.
A garden in the Oasis of Peace.Sarah Ventre/The WorldBut many residents of the Oasis of Peace say it’s never been more important to have those conversations.
“We already know where this path leads. This land bore both of us,” Tzuf Ben Ishay said. “And if we don’t know how to treat ourselves and each other well, it will swallow us together.”
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Rabea Gebbler touches a blade to a fast-spinning piece of wood on a lathe. Shavings fly off in ribbons. And the wood takes the shape of a bowl — the kind used for miso soup. Gebbler is German and came to Yamanaka Onsen about two years ago to study the town’s specific style of woodturning.
“Yamanaka means in the middle of the mountains. So there’s a lot of wood,” said Gebbler.
Rabea Gebbler turns a wooden bowl on a Yamanaka-style lathe.Hannah Kirshner/The WorldFor hundreds of years, Yamanaka artisans have been turning that wood into tableware and teaware. Sometimes, the woodturners apply a finish themselves. But often, their products become a canvas for artisans from Wajima, a northern city in the Ishikawa Prefecture on the Noto Peninsula that is famous for lacquering.
In Wajima, lacquer specialists apply urushi — lacquer made from the sap of urushi trees. Wajima lacquerware — called Wajima-nuri — is influenced by its proximity to the sea: it’s especially strong because the urushi is mixed with local diatomaceous earth.
Pigmented urushi on the Shirota’s work table.Hannah Kirshner/The WorldIn each of these towns, a specific craft is part of the identity of that place. And these places are part of the identity of their crafts.
On Jan. 1, a major earthquake rocked the Noto Peninsula, and Wajima was one of the hardest-hit areas. The earthquake shook the continuity of Wajima-nuri and upended the lives of its makers.
Producing one piece of Wajima-nuri can take five craftspeople and more than 100 steps.
“You’ll have someone making the base material. You’ll have someone doing the base coats, the middle coats, and the top coats, and then even the person for the sanding in between,” Gebbler explained.
The result is shiny opaque lacquer, usually black or red.
An assortment of Ayano Konishi’s maki-e works, displayed on her kitchen table.Hannah Kirshner/The WorldMoreover, sometimes another craftsperson applies maki-e. Maki-e is a painstaking process of painting detailed illustrations with urushi and sprinkling gold (or other precious mineral) powder onto the design. Tiny bits of pearlescent shell or iridescent insect wings are also used: imagine making a mosaic from individual pieces of glitter.
Ayano Konishi is a maki-e artist who had her studio in Wajima until the earthquake earlier this year.
In her Yamanaka kitchen, Ayano Konishi shows a lacquerware cup decorated with hydrangeas.Hannah Kirshner/The WorldHer studio was attached to a family lacquerware shop that had been in business for around 250 years, since the Edo period. The shop was on the same street as Wajima’s famous morning market, where vendors sell fish and produce. All along that street were lacquerware shops and studios.
The shop run by Ayano Konishi’s husband and father-in-law before the fire.Courtesy of Ayano Konishi“On Dec. 31, as usual, our shop was open,” said Konishi. “I took my children for a walk, and we went to the vegetable auntie to buy mandarin oranges and fruits. Everyone greeted us, and the children had a lot of fun.”
But on New Year’s Day, everything would change.
Konishi and her family were relaxing at their apartment just outside town.
“There was a tremendous shaking. I really thought the apartment was going to collapse. I really thought we would die,” she said.
Aftershocks kept coming, and in downtown Wajima, a fire broke out.
Fire consumed downtown Wajima on Jan 1.Courtesy of Ayano Konishi“The earthquake caused the ground to rise, so there was no water anywhere,” said Konishi.
Pipes broke and the river and fire cisterns drained, so firefighters couldn’t draw water. Wajima’s morning market and all the lacquerware shops and studios around it burned.
Ayano Konishi’s view of the Wajima morning market, before and after the fire.Courtesy of Ayano KonishiSix months later, much of Wajima is still uninhabitable. Craftspeople have scattered around the country, staying with relatives or in temporary housing. Some Wajima craftspeople have given up, especially the older ones.
But Kazuya and Kasumi Shirota, a couple who are both maki-e artisans in their 70s, are determined to continue. After the earthquake, their son urged them to come to live with him in Hyogo prefecture, far from Noto.
Kasumi Shirota at her work table in Yamanaka.Hannah Kirshner/The World“I thought, I’m already old, so if I go to my son’s place, I’ll become senile,” said Kazuya Shirota.
Within days of the earthquake, a lacquerware craftsman called the Shirotas from Yamanaka Onsen, the woodturning town. He invited them to come right away and promised to help them start working again.
Now, the Shirotas live and work in an apartment complex in Yamanaka. At the desk they share, Kazuya Shirota works on ornate designs decorating ceremonial objects used in Buddhist temples or during a tea ceremony. On an incense box decorated with a hen and rooster, each feather has been painted one by one, textured with tiny lines, and finished with seven different types of gold powder.
Kazuya Shirota’s works in progress.Hannah Kirshner/The WorldThe Shirotas say they wish they could return to Wajima. They can get money from the government to tear down their damaged house, but they would have to rebuild at their own expense. It could take years. At 70, they don’t think it’s realistic.
Ayano Konishi, who had her studio near Wajima’s morning market, also ended up in Yamanaka, just a few doors down in the same apartment complex. She explained that tools are often passed down from parent to child or teacher to student. Some types are no longer in production. And even when Konishi bought new tools, she modified them to suit her hands and way of working. She lost most of these in the Wajima fire.
Ayano Konish’s tools for sprinkling powdered gold and other precious metals.Hannah Kirshner/The WorldThere has been an outpouring of support for Wajima artisans. Craftspeople from all over Japan sent tools, and crowdfunding campaigns received donations from around the world. Because of all that attention, the Wajima artisans who can work are busier than ever. In turn, Yamanaka woodturners are busy making bases for them.
“We are aiming to return to Wajima eventually,” said Konishi.
But it will take years to clear the rubble and rebuild.
Wajima after the earthquake and fire.Courtesy of Ayano KonishiFor as long as she lives in Yamanaka, Konishi wants to get inspiration from her new environment. Her work draws from nature and is influenced by the people she collaborates with. She recently ordered some wooden bases from a craftsman she met in Yamanaka.
Earthquakes are part of life in Japan. The crafts seen as traditional now were shapedvents, natural resources, and people’s movement. If more Wajima artisans start working in Yamanaka, these two towns and their crafts may become even more interconnected. Some craftspeople are hopeful that this will strengthen them both and allow them to by historical e continue to evolve.
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Baltazar Corvello Cunha, a volunteer aid worker, lost everything in the dangerous floods that have impacted and displaced residents of southern Brazil for weeks. His life is now dedicated to the aid effort, and in recent weeks, Corvello Cunha has set up a website to help designate aid support to families in need.
Baltazar Corvello Cunha taking a medic to the Guaiba River.Michael Fox/The WorldThe World followed Corvello Cunha as he took a medic to treat people who had weathered the floods in an archipelago in the middle of the Guaiba River. Some areas still remain underwater.
Baltazar Corvello Cunha points at the devastation caused by the flooding.Michael Fox/The WorldOn the first days of the tragedy, Corvello Cunha helped save people’s lives while in the water. That’s how he got infected with leptospirosis, a bacterial disease spread by coming in contact with infected animal urine or contaminated water.
“I ended up ingesting some of the water,” he said. “And it created a big wound on my lip. Really swollen and a lot of diarrhea.”
An aerial view of Ilha da Pintada underwater.Michael Fox/The WorldDoctors gave Corvello Cunha some steroid injections, plus a round of antibiotics. It helped, but others who contract leptospirosis haven’t been so lucky.
While the symptoms could take weeks to appear, the bacteria can attack vital organs, causing fever, renal failure, jaundice, hemorrhaging and trouble breathing. So far, 17 people have died, and there are more than 4,500 suspected cases across the state.
“Especially with the mud everywhere. And they’re cleaning without boots, suitable pants, and gloves that protect against the direct contact of the water with the skin,” said Alexandre Zavaski, an emergency doctor in Porto Alegre, who has treated flood victims since the beginning of the tragedy.
A public market in Porto Alegre, Brazil is covered in mud and trash.Michael Fox/The WorldSome flood victims don’t want to return, for fear of the disease. Doctors say leptospirosis has become a major concern since the waters have dropped. The bacteria is in higher concentrations in the muddy water and mud left over by the flooding.
Many families have been displaced since the flooding and now live in shelters, as seen in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil.Michael Fox/The WorldThat includes homes that were inundated and which people are now cleaning out. Streets across the region are lined with piles of furniture and clothes destroyed by the floodwaters.
“We see there is a lack of equipment for people to clean their homes,” said Alexandre Zavaski.
A teddy bear on top of rubbles as inhabitants are cleaning homes in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil.Michael Fox/The WorldAnd it’s been raining heavily, again.
Everyone worries the water will rise again, engulfing city streets where the rubble has yet to be cleared, prolonging the tragedy and the toll.
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At a recent march in Bogota, Colombia, activists banged on drums while wearing kaffiyehs — the black and white scarves that have come to symbolize the Palestinian struggle.
The group marched towards the Israeli consulate, carrying signs that demanded an end to the bombings in Gaza.
Activists play their drums as they march towards Israel’s consulate in Bogota, Colombia on June 6. As thousands of civilians are killed in Gaza, many people in Latin America have begun to side with the Palestinians.Manuel Rueda/The World“We want the genocide to stop,” said Rosa Piedrahita, a former Colombian rebel fighter who showed up at the march carrying a doll covered in red paint to resemble blood.
“We know what it’s like to be targeted.”
Rosa Piedrahita, former Colombian rebel fighter
“We know what it’s like to be targeted,” she said. “And we want the women and children in Palestine to survive.”
Rosa Piedrahita, a former member of a rebel group, showed up at a pro Palestine rally in Bogota, Colombia on June 6. She said she was tired of the killings of women and children in the Gaza strip.Manuel Rueda/The WorldLatin American nations have traditionally sided with the Palestinian cause. But last year, many countries in the region condemned the Hamas attack on Israel that led to the current war in Gaza. Since then — as thousands of civilians perish in Israeli bombings and the carnage shows up on social media — many people are now actively siding with the Palestinians.
Pro-Palestinian activists in the region have also received the support of some Latin American governments, who have spoken out against Israel in international forums and even joined efforts to boycott the Middle Eastern nation.
“As people from the Global South, it is our duty to come here and show our solidarity with the victims of Israeli terrorism,” said Camilo Gonzales, a recent graduate of Bogota’s National University of Colombia.
Students in Bogota’s National University have set up a small campsite to raise awareness about the war in Gaza. They want the university to stop exchange programs with Israeli universities.Manuel Rueda/The WorldHe’s staying at a campsite on the university campus, where about 50 activists organize lectures on the conflict and protests throughout the city.
“We were also a colony once,” Gonzalez said. “And sometimes, other countries still tell us what to do.”
Sending a messageThis anti-colonial sentiment also seems to be shared by some Latin American leaders, who have described the conflict in the Middle East as an uneven fight between a powerful nation and a group of people that is struggling to obtain its independence.
During an African Union conference earlier this year, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva described the situation in Gaza as “a war between a highly trained army” on one side and “women and children on the other”, adding that Brazil will defend Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
Activists of all ages wave Palestinian flags as they march towards Israel’s consulate in Bogota, Colombia on June 6.Manuel Rueda/The WorldColombia has gone further, with President Gustavo Petro breaking off diplomatic ties with Israel last month. In a Labor Day speech, Petro told supporters that he couldn’t sustain relations with a “genocidal government,” adding that his country could not “turn a blind eye” to the “extermination” of the Palestinian people.
Colombia’s government also said last week that it will stop coal exports to power plants in Israel.
President Petro said that shipments of coal will only resume if Israel complies with a recent ruling from the International Court of Justice that ordered Israel to cease its offensive in Rafah.
An activist in Bogota holds a sign that says, “History will not forgive those who are indifferent and we are not among them,” during a pro-Palestinian rally at Bogota’s airport, May 12, 2024.Manuel Rueda/The WorldManuel Rayran, an international relations professor at Bogota’s Externado University, said that with these protests, countries like Colombia and Brazil are trying to send a message to world powers.
“These smaller countries are trying to remind the more powerful countries that international law should be respected,” Rayran said. “And that they should stop their allies from violating rules that everyone else has been asked to follow.”
Activists stage a pro-Palestinian rally in Bogota’s international airport on May 12. They were there to welcome Palestino, a soccer team from Chile that was founded by Palestinian immigrants.Manuel Rueda/The WorldReliance on Israeli weaponsBut within Latin American countries, there are also many people who are unhappy with the latest moves against Israel.
Colombia has bought more than 20 fighter jets from Israel over the past three decades that depend on Israeli companies for maintenance. And its military also relies on the Middle Eastern nation for assault rifles and intelligence equipment.
By breaking relations with Israel, Colombia could be hurting its own defense capabilities, said Julio Londoño, a former Colombian foreign minister.
“I think it was a mistake,” Londono said. “The president took the decision in one moment, without consulting members of the military or the ministry of foreign affairs.”
An activists at Bogota’s National University holds up a poster of Aaron Bushnell, the US serviceman who self-immolated himself to protest the war in Gaza.Manuel Rueda/The WorldMarta Tawil Kuri researches the relations between Latin American countries and Middle Eastern states at the Colegio de Mexico University.
She said that Colombia is not the only country in the region that relies on Israel for its security.
“Chile has bought Israeli drones to patrol its border with Bolivia and Peru in the fight against drug trafficking,“ she said, “while Mexico has developed an increasing dependence on Israeli espionage” software.
Tawil Kuri said that most countries in the region are not likely to break ties with Israel or join Colombia’s efforts to boycott it — because they benefit from their relationship with the country.
An activist chants pro-Palestine songs at a rally in Bogota’s airport, May 12, 2024. Many in Latin America see the war in Gaza as a conflict between a powerful nation and a group that has long struggled to gain its independence.Manuel Rueda/The World“The worsening of insecurity in the public space in many of these countries has led several governments in the region to invest more in defense and intelligence diplomacy, something that has brought governments in the region from the right or left, closer to Israel,” Tawil Kuri explained.
Plus, many Latin American countries don’t want to jeopardize their relations with Israel’s main ally: the United States.
“If the United States changed its agenda, for instance, stopping all arms sales, all economic or military cooperation … I think the Latin American countries would start to be much more assertive,” she said.
High school students in Bogota carry a poster that says, “Our America joins the Palestinian resistance,” during a protests on June 6.Manuel Rueda/The WorldTawil Kuri added that Latin American governments are making both domestic and international calculations before they weigh in on the conflict in the Middle East.
And while Colombia is now participating in efforts to boycott Israel, others have preferred to take a more discrete approach.
Related: US army official resigns over ‘unqualified’ US support for Israel’s war in Gaza
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The Boston Celtics are facing the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA finals, and they’re now just one win away from clinching the championship.
One of the players who helped lead them there is 7-foot-3-inch star center Kristaps Porziņģis.
Fans in his native Latvia hope their favorite player will return for Game 4 on June 14 — after sustaining injuries — and ultimately, become the first Latvian NBA champion.
Porziņģis, who is from Liepāja, Latvia, comes from a basketball family.
“My older brother was a professional basketball player, and my middle brother also played. My mom is 6’1, dad is 6’4 and I’m 7’3,” he said during a 2017 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
Porziņģis was drafted into the NBA in 2015, and soon enough, people around the league started calling him “the unicorn,” a nickname given to him by Phoenix Suns superstar Kevin Durant.
At first, Porziņģis admitted he was confused by the nickname, but now, Porziņģis and all basketball fans know what it means to be a “unicorn.” A unicorn is a ball player with a unique — or almost unbelievable skill set.
What makes Porziņģis unique is his extreme length and ability to shoot deep 3-pointers.
Boston Celtics’ Kristaps Porziņģis heads back upcourt after making a 3-point basket against the Oklahoma City Thunder during the second half of an NBA basketball game on April 3, 2024, in Boston.Winslow Townson/APIn Riga, former professional basketball player Žanis Peiners recalled a scrimmage against Porziņģis for the first time in 2017, when they were both on the Latvian national team.
“For me, the funniest thing was probably when you are guarding him, he faces up, shoots over you, and I’m like, 6’8, 6’ 9 almost, and I’m trying to block, and I’m like barely touching his elbow, and I was like, what is this? Like, how is this possible,” he said.
Peiners and Porziņģis eventually hit it off and became friends. Peiners is now one of his personal trainers.
Porziņģis had an all-star-level season this year. But one thing that’s plagued him has been his health. He’s had multiple injuries throughout his career — and this year, early in the playoffs, it happened again: Porziņģis strained his calf muscle, which kept him off the court for 10 games.
Peiners was in touch with him throughout the recovery process.
“He was pretty down mentally because he understood what it means,” Peiners said. “It was about him not getting hurt, and he got hurt in the playoffs, so he was a little bit depressed.”
A week ago, Porziņģis returned in Game 1 of the NBA finals.
Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porziņģis (8) shoots over Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic (77) during the second half of Game 1 of basketball’s NBA Finals on June 6, 2024, in Boston.Charles Krupa/APThe Boston crowd greeted Porziņģis with a standing ovation — he went on to dominate the game. But now, despite the fairytale return to the finals, the injury rollercoaster ride with Porziņģis continues.
Following Game 2, he was ruled “questionable” after sustaining another injury.
Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porziņģis (8) looks to pass under pressure from Dallas Mavericks forward Derrick Jones Jr. (55) during Game 2 of the NBA Basketball Finals, June 9, 2024, in Boston.Steven Senne/APBut that fact hasn’t stopped Latvian fans from getting up in the middle of the night to watch the Celtics play.
About 10 Latvian basketball fans gathered at a motorcycle clubhouse in Riga at 3 a.m. to watch Game 3 on a giant screen.
Diehard Latvian basketball fans hope that Latvian Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porziņģis will be the first Latvian NBA finals champion. They woke up at 3 a.m. local time to watch Game 3 and cheer the team on.Daniel Ofman/The WorldThey’re disappointed that Porziņģis is injured, but they’re still bringing passion to the team. Some of them sport Porziņģis jerseys or other Celtics paraphernalia. Reinis Kazāks is one of the organizers of this fan club.
I’m in Riga watching the #nbafinals with some die hard Latvian basketball fans. They’re upset about the @kporzee injury (he’s from Latvia and he’s their favorite player!) but they’re still up at 4am watching the game and rooting for the Celtics. @TheWorld @GBHNews pic.twitter.com/7hQqx2WCAT
— Daniel Ofman (@OfmanDaniel) June 13, 2024
“You know, we are only 2 million here in Latvia, and our guy plays in the NBA. Super proud of him,” Kazāks said. “I’m now a Boston fan, and we are lucky to see our guy in finals.”
Kazāks and other fans have traveled to the US to watch Porziņģis play in the NBA.
Reinis Kazāks said he’s now a Boston fan and traveled to the US to watch Boston Celtics center player Kristaps Porziņģis, of Latvia, play. He also got to meet him.Daniel Ofman/The WorldAnother fan, Miks Galvanovskis, said that because Latvia is such a small country, some fans have mutual friends with Porziņģis or have met him before.
“Kristaps knows that we are watching here, too, and we have a lot of good friends in common with him,” Galvanovskis said. “His name over here will never be forgotten, let’s say that.”
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Haiti has new leadership, and authorities there are vowing to take on the criminal gangs that control much of the country. Prime Minister Garry Conille, who’s been in office for just two weeks, announced a slate of cabinet ministers on Tuesday.
Garry Conille, fourth from right, poses for photos with members of the transitional council after his swearing-in ceremony as prime minister in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, June 3, 2024.Odelyn Joseph/APHe’s also hoping the arrival of a thousand Kenyan security forces will bolster Haiti’s beleaguered police force.
To learn more about the situation on the ground in Haiti, The World’s host Marco Werman spoke with Widlore Mérancourt, editor-in-chief at AyiboPost, who joined from the capital Port-au-Prince.
Marco Werman: Widlore, Haitians have been waiting a long time for a new government. Has this new slate of cabinet ministers given people much optimism? Widlore Mérancourt: Haiti finally has a new government led by Mr. Garry Conille. He’s a figure that has a lot of support inside of the country. Many people trust him and respect him. He’s someone with a long career, and not just in state positions, but also because he’s someone who has a long career in international institutions, and people trust him with the people that he’s selected to become ministers in this new government. New Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille, left, speaks to the president of the council Edgard Leblanc Fils during his swearing-in ceremony in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, June 3, 2024.Odelyn Joseph/APGarry Conille, the new prime minister, has been at the helm for just two weeks. Last weekend, he was hospitalized. How shaky has this start been for him as prime minister? That’s one indication of how the public trusts him. According to sources close to him, he suffered respiratory issues. When this was announced, you could see people overwhelmingly saying positive things about him and wishing him well across the board all over the internet and on radio stations. He also changed the tone of the government. He published things about his health condition. He promised transparency. It’s a stark contrast to how things were conducted in the past government. So, the prime minister has been transparent about his respiratory issues and has now been discharged from the hospital. In recent weeks, Widlore, Haiti’s main international airport, has reopened. It sounds, though, like the country’s main seaport remains a security problem. How would you describe the security situation at the port and just generally at the moment in the capital? Well, the situation in the country is still extremely concerning. A couple of days ago, multiple police officers were killed by the gang led by Jimmy Chérizier, a former police officer and probably the most powerful gang leader in Haiti. It’s a reminder of how dire the situation is. You talked about the port that is struggling, you talked about the airport. It has some sort of security because the US is intervening there. You have US planes coming in and out to help build the base where the Kenyans will stay. But overall, you have lots of kidnappings going on. You have the gangs continuing their attacks against the civil population. So, people are waiting for this force. They are waiting also for the Haitian National Police to be strengthened so they can tackle the severe insecurity crisis. Security guards stand guard as Haiti’s Prime Minister Garry Conille leaves after attending the inauguration of the nation’s new cabinet in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, June 12, 2024.Odelyn Joseph/APWhat about these Kenyan security forces? I know a Kenyan delegation was recently in Haiti to discuss the deployment but serious discussions, as you know, have been going on for months. When are these troops set to arrive? We are receiving conflicting reports. They were supposed to be here in mid-June, but now it seems to be pushed maybe by the end of June. There are things that have yet to be resolved, including rules of engagement that have yet to be public. We also have challenges from the judicial system in Kenya, which will go to this force, and all these things are ongoing. There is goodwill on both sides from Kenya, but also from the new administration in Haiti. But, this goodwill is plagued by administrative, judicial and logistical issues. Is it clear whether the current government in Haiti and the security forces, whether the Kenyan troops are there or not, do they have a real strategy, a workable plan, to put these well-armed criminal gangs out of business? It is clear that the Haitian National Police, but also the small army that we have, is inadequate and outgunned. So, over the past years, hundreds of police officers were killed, hundreds of others abandoned the force and hundreds of others took advantage of the humanitarian parole program that Joe Biden, the US president, gave Haitians opportunities to take pardon. So, you have fewer police officers today. You have a police force that is demoralized by the many members who were killed, and it’s unclear if the new government is going to change strategy. And for that exact reason, it’s really uncertain that Kenyan forces alone will solve the crime and violence. So, I’m curious to know, Widlore, what signs you’ll be looking for that might indicate Haiti is turning a corner and finally seeing more calm and stability? Well, this new government, I think people regard it as a chance for the country to turn around and take the path of more stability. I think the signals that the prime minister is sending are being received by many corners of this country as positive ones. But what we all know speeches and promises are not enough when it comes to tackling the issues of of Haitians. And so far, [there’s] lots of hope on the shoulders of this new government, but we have to wait and see.Parts of the interview have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Related: As Haiti teeters, the US government resumes deportations
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National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has been traveling the globe on foot since 2013. He’s on a 24,000-mile journey known as Out of Eden Walk, following the path of human migration out of Africa, moving eastward across the globe, and eventually ending at the tip of South America.
The last time The World caught up with Salopek, he talked about his 2016 trek through Uzbekistan, where he followed the Great Silk Road and learned how it was a thoroughfare for explorers, traders and conquerors throughout the centuries.
From Uzbekistan, Salopek eventually made his way to Afghanistan, where he wrote about being greeted by Afghan soldiers at the start of the Wakhan Corridor, a narrow strip that runs nearly 200 miles eastward toward China. Host Marco Werman caught up with Salopek again to learn more about his experience walking through the corridor.
Marco Werman: So, you reported from Afghanistan right after 9/11. What did you see this time compared to then? How different was the experience? Paul Salopek: Yeah, the first time I was there, Marco, was, of course, during the active phase of the US-backed conquest of Afghanistan, if you will, using local forces like the Northern Alliance. I was there as a war reporter. I was covering front-line conflicts on the Somali plain and the fall of Kabul, the capital. This time, I was way up in the northern mountains, an area that is so remote that it has been largely untouched by war ever. It was like a completely different Afghanistan. You were hiking through the Wakhan Corridor, which looks kind of unusual on the map. How do you describe this narrow strip of Afghanistan? Indeed, it’s a strange kind of appendage that pokes out of northeastern Afghanistan for about … it’s like a finger that extends towards the Chinese border for about 170 miles, about 270 km. It’s only about, on average, 10 miles or 15 km wide, very thin. It was created more than 100 years ago by the British and Russian empires. They wanted to keep their armies separate, a buffer zone. So, they created this extension in Afghanistan. So, it basically is a high-altitude river valley, 20,000-foot mountains, glaciers, and very, very few people. I think nobody really knows, but maybe 15,000 people in the whole region.So, really remote. I mean, who are these 15,000 people? These are folks who’ve basically been buffered from the influences of the outside world by these massive peaks, some of the tallest peaks on the planet, you know, it’s part of the Himalayas. And also by the fact that the war has cut them off for decades as well. Down in the lowlands, they’re ethnic Shia farmers, Ismailis who basically live off the grid. And then up in the highland pastures, they’re nomadic yak herders, ethnic Kyrgyz. It’s kind of like a time capsule, a place lost in time.Yeah, I mean, that’s the real sense I got from reading about it. So, you describe seeing a tiny and windowless hut in a high, wild valley in Afghanistan, and this hut was making a sound, a strange humming sound. What were you hearing, Paul? It’s kind of almost like this industrial hum. And there’s no electricity, you know, no phone lines or nothing. It’s a kind of alpine wilderness. It is an ancient watermill. This technology that’s more than 2,000 years old, that’s still in use in the region. They’re using 600-pound granite wheels that are turned by glacier-melt creeks to grind up their wheat into flour. So this was kind of an ancient technology that was still kind of very robust, again, like a time capsule. Dusted with stone-ground flour, Shambe, 9, is an apprentice at a vanishing, millennia-old trade. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkYeah. I mean, ancient technology in the 21st century. So, what is life like for an ancient-style miller running a water-powered gristmill in this part of the world? You know, I did a little bit of homework once I came across this. It was delightful, first of all, to come across this kind of artifact of another time, a pre-industrial time. The last time a census, a big census, was done in England was a thousand years ago, and they had thousands of these things, you know, one for every 4 or 5 families. And that kind of medieval sense of water, hydropower was still very much in effect in this very remote, high corner of Afghanistan. The same family was passing down the kind of tradecraft of how [to] grind flour. It’s not as simple as it sounds, from father to son. And when I met the guys, when they came out of the hut, they were covered head to toe in white flour. They look kind of like ghosts. You were out in nature, as you usually are, Paul, and right in the middle of the habitat of the snow leopard, one of the world’s most-vulnerable species. You joined up with a team that traps and tags these animals for their protection. What was that like?Again, just another extraordinary experience. One of the most extraordinary stretches of this global walk was being up in an alpine environment where wildlife was still seen. At that point, I’d walked, I don’t know, 10,000 miles, 16,000 km across the Earth, and so much of the Earth had been changed by agriculture, industry, pipelines, highways, you name it. The last place I saw wildlife, like I did in the Wakhan of Afghanistan, was way back at the beginning of the walk in 2013, in Africa. This was the only other place in the walk where I saw ibexes, these kind of big montane antelope. They’re the size of small ponies. There are bears up there. There are golden eagles up there.The pug mark of a snow leopard in the Chapursan Valley, Pakistan. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkSo, you spoke about geography isolating this area, but is that the only reason? Why has this part of the world not emerged from the past?I think it is largely geography — I think it’s mountain walls. Also, you know, until now, no lucrative natural resources have been found that would invite industrial development. Although I will say this, Marco, I just checked lately about the fate of the region since the Taliban took over. The Taliban had never entered the Wakhan until, you know, they took over the country. Why? Was it just too troublesome to get over the mountains? Yeah, it was kind of off their radar. It wasn’t their cultural kind of area, right. The Taliban are Sunni, you know, these are Shia Ismaili people who are from a different Muslim sect. They’re considered kind of, you know, outside the family, if you will, and they’re considered like kind of half-wild populations of shepherds. And so, it’s always been marginalized, even before the Taliban took over. It’s always been a kind of a neglected, forgotten corner of Afghanistan. But what I’ve read is that just this year, the Taliban government has pushed through a new road to reach the Chinese border in hopes of establishing a trade link across these vast mountains. So, if that’s true, and I don’t know of anybody who’s been up there lately to take a look, that could radically change this very remote corner of the world. Last steps in the Wakhan corridor. The grueling ascent to Irshad Pass, Afghanistan’s 16,335-foot gateway to Pakistan. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org.Matthieu Paley/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkSo, you tried to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan on foot via a high mountain pass, but that did not go well. What was the problem? That’s an understatement. So, imagine it’s tough enough in October to climb over the Hindu Kush in a blizzard. It was literally whiteout conditions, we couldn’t see 2 or 3 miles ahead of us on a 45-degree slope. And we had two cargo donkeys, the donkeys were rolling down the slopes. My walking partner, Matthieu Paley, and I were climbing down to get these poor donkeys back on their feet. We finally get over the mountain pass. We sleep near the summit. My clothes freeze inside of my tent as I’m wearing them. It’s that cold at night. And then we think we’re kind of home-free when we come down on the Pakistani side, but it turns out we weren’t. Pakistani security forces arrested us, detained us and deported us, basically sent us out of the country, and we had to go to Abu Dhabi. And then, I got permission to come back in to continue the walk. It was a bit of a surprise, but they allowed me to continue to walk through. So, no complaints there.Parts of the interview have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonders of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
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Saliha Gündüz, a PhD student from Turkey, has just handed over her smartphone to one of the founders of The Offline Club in Amsterdam, who places it carefully in a “phone hotel” — essentially a locker with dividers that holds up to 60 phones.
Phones are placed in a “phone hotel,” or a locker with dividers, as people try to disconnect from technology at The Offline Club.Orla Barry/The WorldGündüz said she doesn’t feel apprehensive yet — and she settled down to a cup of herbal tea at the New Yoga School cafe in the center of Amsterdam.
“The withdrawal symptoms will kick in later,” she said. “But maybe a withdrawal is what’s needed if I’m going to cure myself of my addiction.”
Gündüz estimates she spends up to six hours a day on her phone.
“I just want to get a hit of dopamine but then it wears off, and I want the same thing again. It’s an endless cycle.”
Gündüz is among 20 people of all ages and nationalities who turned up at The Offline Club on a wet Friday evening in May to see if they could wean themselves off of their addiction.
DisconnectingThe club’s founders — Ilya Kneppelhout, Valentijn Klok and Jordy van Bennekom — started the venture in 2022 with a plan to host offline weekend getaways. Kneppelhout said, at the time, each of the co-founders felt their phones had been dominating their lives.
Earlier that year, he took a short trip to the north of the Netherlands on his own with “some books, a journal and myself.”
No phone. He said something shifted over those four days.
“I felt so much creativity and, at the same time, a sense of peace.”
Van Bennekom did the same and loved it. They began organizing weekend getaways with groups in a house in the countryside. Everyone was required to hand over their phones upon arrival. The three-day events were a hit. But Kneppelhout said that not everyone can afford to pay a few hundred dollars for the experience. So, the idea of The Offline Club was born.
People chat with each other while they disconnect from their phones for a couple of hours at The Offline Club.Courtesy of The Offline ClubEach attendee at the club pays around $8 at the door. The events and venues differ each time. At the New Yoga School in Amsterdam, van Bennekom lays out the rules for the evening.
First, there’s 45 minutes of quiet time, then a 30-minute break to chat, then a further 30 minutes of time to yourself. Most people bring books to read. Soft music plays in the background as van Bennekom lays out coloring books and markers for anyone who wants to draw or doodle.
People read, knit, play games and partake in other activities while trying to disconnect from technology at The Offline Club.Courtesy of The Offline ClubOn that rainy Friday, three men from Puglia in Italy were huddled in one corner drinking tea. Two of them were visiting their friend Pietro Maggi who lives in Amsterdam. Maggi, who works for electric carmaker Tesla, said the evening was his idea and that he persuaded his two visitors to join him.
“Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by technology,” Maggi said. “After a full workday, a lot of us just go back home and start streaming movies or scrolling through our phones and I think, in a way, we are detaching from ourselves and from our thoughts.”
People drink tea or have other refreshments while they’re disconnecting at The Offline Club.Courtesy of The Offline ClubHis friend, Damiano Caforio, said he was curious about the event. Maggi joked that Caforio might find the evening useful. Caforio shook his head at the suggestion that he might have a mild smartphone addiction: “I don’t have any social media accounts except Facebook. I don’t have Instagram, I don’t even have LinkedIn.”
But then, he admitted that there might be some truth to Maggi’s accusation.
“I keep looking at the news constantly, checking to see what’s going on in the world, or, more specifically, with my job.”
He works at the Italian Chamber of Commerce.
Phones are locked away in containers while people unplug from technology for a couple of hours at The Offline Club in the Netherlands.Courtesy of The Offline Club“I need to know what’s going on, I feel I need to control the environment.”
Even on the flight over, Caforio said, he downloaded wifi so he could message his friends on WhatsApp even while he was in the air.
“Actually, I desperately need this experience tonight,” he laughed.
It wasn’t long before they said they felt more relaxed and grounded. The friends started reminiscing about the days before smartphones — when every phone call cost money. When they were teenagers, Caforio, said they had a special code to let girls know they were thinking of them.
You would call her and then hang up before she answered to avoid being charged, he said. Then she’d know she was on your mind. And if you really liked her, you would leave several missed calls. If she did the same back, Caforio said there was no feeling in the world quite like it.
Some people read books while they’re at The Offline Club.Courtesy of The Offline ClubOffline activitiesLeah Davies from Wales said she spotted a post about The Offline Club on Instagram.
“I saw people reading books and knitting and playing piano,” she said. “And I just loved the idea of being able to go somewhere where you’re not checking your phone all night.”
Ilya Kneppelhout is one of the founders of The Offline Club in The Netherlands.Orla Barry/The WorldDavies attended while she was on a weekend break with her partner. She agreed that it’s not the first thing that comes to mind for most visitors to Amsterdam.
“But this is our first night, we have three other nights for all the debauchery,” she joked.
Davies said she would like to see phones restricted at other events too, like concerts and nightclubs, “so people can just dance or talk like you did in the ‘90s.”
Phone-free music events are already happening elsewhere in the Netherlands. In Tilburg, a city in the south of the country, another group, Off the Radar, organizes music gigs where attendees are expected to hand in their devices at the door.
There isn’t anything quintessentially Dutch about the desire to have smartphone-free events, said Ilya Kneppelhout, co-founder of The Offline Club. But work-life balance is an important aspect of life in the Netherlands.
“We work to live here, not the other way around,” he said.
A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found only 0.3% of employees in the Netherlands work very long hours in paid work, the lowest rate in the OECD, where the average is 10%. In January, smartphones were banned in secondary schools across the country under government guidelines.
A similar ban is set to be introduced in Dutch primary schools in the 2024-25 school year. A study last month by Radboud University in the Netherlands found that students were generally positive about the change, saying breaks were more enjoyable and there was less bullying during school hours.
Plans to expandThe Offline Club’s founders are hoping to expand the concept to other cities worldwide. Right now, the trio operates events in six different cities across the Netherlands. Kneppelhout said the sudden success of the venture took them by surprise.
Some people like to draw or color while they’re at The Offline Club.Courtesy of The Offline ClubIn February, they posted a couple of reels on Instagram after their first club event. The videos gained millions of views and their feed was filled with requests asking them to hold similar events abroad.
It was all a bit overwhelming, Kneppelhout said, but in a good way. He said he also sees the irony of an Instagram post about a club that advocates for an offline lifestyle going viral. Ultimately, Kneppelhout said, I would like to delete all our social media apps and for the initiative to still be a success.
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Sandy Park graduated from high school last month, but she didn’t receive a typical South Korean education.
Her school runs on the US academic calendar, and all classes are taught in English. It follows the International Baccalaureate curriculum, and while graduates earn a diploma that’s accepted in dozens of countries, it is not recognized in South Korea.
Park can’t think of a single student in her class of about 50 people who will attend a college in South Korea this fall.
“Most students who come to international schools plan on going to schools abroad, mostly in the United States,” the 19-year old said.
To many South Koreans, a degree from a prestigious American university is seen as a ticket to success. And for some students, there’s an alternate educational system and industry focused on getting them into the school of their dreams.
Sandy Park is a graduate of an international school in South Korea, an institute that prepares students for college overseas. Jason Strother/The WorldThere are hundreds of private institutes known as “international schools” in South Korea that prepare students for higher education overseas — especially in the United States.
Over a million international students are enrolled in American colleges and universities. According to the Institute for International Education, around 62,000 are South Korean nationals, which account for the third-largest foreign student body behind India and China, countries with vastly larger populations.
For some students and their families who hope that an American university degree will translate into better job prospects back home in South Korea, international schools, as well as other adjacent educational services provide a pipeline to enrollment in the US.
For Park, attending one of these schools wasn’t just about academics; it allowed her to explore other extracurricular interests. She played soccer and volleyball, joined a K-pop dance club and took photos for the yearbook.
She said that if she had gone to a mainstream Korean high school, she would have spent most evenings inside a cram school, called hagwon, studying for the university entrance exam — a highly competitive test that’s widely seen as a one-shot chance to enroll at one of Korea’s top universities.
Park said that’s a rite of passage she’s glad she missed out on.
“I think the academic pressure is really high on Korean high school students,” she said. “It seems unbearable for me.”
Park already had a taste for life in the US.
In junior high, Park’s family sent her to a boarding school in Maryland, but she returned to South Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic and enrolled in the international school.
It was all but certain she’d go back to the US for college.
For guidance, Park and her parents turned to a consultancy that specializes in helping students navigate the overseas university application process. These agencies, known as yuhagwon in Korean, advise on how best to write essays, find attractive internships and curate portfolios — anything that could make an applicant stand out to an admissions office.
Sandy Park will attend New York University this fall. Jason Strother/The WorldThere’s an “international education boom” happening in South Korea, said Lee Sarang, Park’s adviser at Ivy Connection in Seoul. And some families are willing to pay for whatever extra assistance they can get that will lead toward a degree from a name-brand university abroad, she explained.
“I think most of our clients do value their children’s education and they believe that these children should be given the best-possible chance of getting into the school of their dreams,” Lee said.
But some critics point out that admission into international schools can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, and some consultancies charge clients even more — making this parallel education system out of range for most families.
Michael Hurt, who teaches cultural studies at the Korea National University of the Arts in Seoul, said that because this industry is profit driven, some consultancies go to questionable extremes to get results for their clients, which he claims include fabricating resumes and writing admissions essays.
“There are no ethical boundaries,” said Hurt, who’s worked in South Korea’s education system for over 20 years. “The cheating gets students in, and that’s how you make your money.”
Hurt said that this all makes the international education sector even more competitive, and in order for the truly qualified and motivated students who aspire to study in the US get a chance to do so, they and their families need to spend even more to get ahead.
Park said that she wrote her own admissions essays, and she thinks the advice she received from the consultant helped her gain early decision to her top-pick US college.
This fall, she’ll begin her freshman year at New York University.
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Fred Khanganya, a farmer selling his goods at the Lizulu Market in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital and largest city, has been standing by his pile of cabbage and Irish potatoes for hours, hoping to turn his harvest into hard cash.
But the money isn’t coming.
A section of the Lizulu Market in Lilongwe, Malawi.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World“Business is slow because high fertilizer costs have pushed up the prices of my produce, so people aren’t buying. They’re complaining it’s too expensive,” he said.
Farmer Fred Khanganya is forced to double the prices of his produce due to high fertilizer costs.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldMalawi, a nation of 21 million people already ranked among the poorest globally, is now facing a severe cost-of-living crisis due to soaring fertilizer prices.
Unlike some African countries with local fertilizer production capabilities (such as Nigeria, Egypt and Morocco), Malawi relies almost entirely on imported fertilizers. This dependence makes the country vulnerable to global market fluctuations, supply chain disruptions and geopolitical issues like sanctions on Russian fertilizer.
Khanganyah said he can no longer keep up with the cost of fertilizer, especially now that the local currency, the Malawian kwacha, is losing value.
The local currency, the Malawian Kwacha, is losing its value.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World“Last year, I was buying 50 kilograms of fertilizer for between $11 to $13, but now, it is going for $45 to $52,” he said.
In Malawi, fertilizer is mainly used for maize and tobacco, key crops driving the economy. In March, the government declared a state of disaster as the country entered its dry season with critically low food stocks.
Khanganya said fertilizers help farmers improve crop resilience in such situations, so these supply challenges are a pain. He doubled his prices to stay afloat.
“That’s the only way I can also survive and keep my children in school,” he said.
Another farmer, Mai Kamala, a single mother of nine, relies solely on farming to support her family. She said that as a woman, she already faces many challenges with farming, such as getting a loan and rising fertilizer costs, making it even harder for her to succeed.
“I used to afford enough fertilizer for my 2-acre farm, but now, I can barely cover half the field,” she said. “It feels like we’re being pushed out of farming, which is our only lifeline as Malawians.”
At a retail agrochemical shop stacked with various types of fertilizers in labeled bags, attendant Ntombizodwa Siula said they are also feeling the hardship of rising fertilizer costs.
Agrochemical shop attendant Ntombizodwa Siula.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World“We’re not inflating prices,” she said. “We’re simply trying to keep up with the rising costs of importing these essential products. Every bag we sell reflects the higher costs we incur to bring these fertilizers to the farmers.”
Maintaining a reliable supply chain in a volatile market requires building buffer stocks and securing reliable suppliers, which come at a premium, Siula said.
Malawi faces significant challenges in its fertilizer economy — similar to many of its southern African neighbors — but often, to a greater extent due to being landlocked and having weaker infrastructure.
Over the years, the country has tried implementing subsidy programs to make fertilizers affordable for smallholder farmers. However, these programs are prone to issues such as mismanagement and corruption.
Traders rely on local farmers for their stock, but with the high cost of fertilizers, farms are producing less, and the scarcity drives up prices, said Grace Chirambo, who sells vegetables.
She said it is harder for her customers to dig into their pockets for her goods.
Grace Chirambo, a widow and a mother of two, says soaring fertilizer costs are affecting her ability to fend for her family.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldAt her stand, “These vegetables are from yesterday but until now, this time, they are still here. So, you can see that economically, it is not going well,” she said.
Chirambo, a widow and a mother of two, said that since her sales began to decline, she’s been cutting back on her daily meals to save money to feed her children.
“It is very difficult. But my children’s needs come first. If that means I go hungry, so be it,” she said.
When President Lazarus Chakwera took office in 2020, he promised to ensure prosperity for all Malawians by fighting poverty and attracting foreign investments. Today, over 70% of Malawians live below the poverty line, and more than 4 million are food insecure.
Peter Chawanda, a father of five who works for a car rental company in Lilongwe, said the president has not lived up to expectations.
Peter Chawanda, a father of five who works for a car rental company in Lilongwe, Malawi, said President Chakwera has not lived up to expectations.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World“During the election campaign, he said a lot but has failed to fulfill his promises. So, people in Malawi, they are suffering a lot. Not only I, but the whole Malawi,” he said.
Chawanda said he usually circles the market for about 30 minutes looking for food that he can afford because prices have gone through the roof since his last visit. Now, he’s contemplating taking proteins off his list.
“We can’t manage to buy things. We are afraid to eat meat. We can’t afford to buy meat. Meat is very expensive. Even fish, if we have to buy fish, it is a problem,” he said.
Last year, Chakwera suspended all international travel for himself and his government to save money, cut fuel allowances for senior officials by 50% and ordered ministers abroad to return home. The government also secured a $175 million bailout to drive economic reforms.
Simplex Chithyola Banda, the country’s finance minister, said the economy will soon recover.
“Traditionally, tobacco has been our major Forex earner, but now, we’ve also explored carbon financing and marketing as an area where we can generate more resources,” Chithyola Banda said. “We’ve also explored minerals in this country. Malawi has the largest deposits of rutile globally.”
Simplex Chithyola Banda, Malawi’s finance minister, told The World that Malawi’s economy should recover soon.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldBy tapping into its rutile reserves, Chithyola Banda said that Malawi has the potential to strengthen its economy, create jobs and improve livelihoods. He also said the government is looking at homegrown solutions to address the need for fertilizer.
“We are moving towards having our own fertilizer production in this country so that we can reduce the costs of input,” he said. “So, we are looking at fertilizers produced from locally available materials and also supporting research and development of alternative fertilizers that can be manufactured domestically.”
Malawi relies almost entirely on imported fertilizers for its agriculture-based economy.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldBanda said he believes the country could achieve middle-income status in the next two to three years.
Back at the Lizulu Market, Peter Chawanda said that these long-term measures are promising, but they are like seeds planted on rocky soil — they may bear fruit, but it might be too little too late.
“We need solutions that are quick,” he said, adding, “Because if this situation persists, for sure, we are going to die.”
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Ishii Sakura’s death stare is something else.
The 18-year-old sumo champ doesn’t look enraged in the ring. She just looks at her rivals the way sharks look at food.
“My opponents say I glare at them,” Ishii said. “I exude an aura that I’m going to fight. And afterward, my opponents say, ‘You looked bigger in the ring.’”
Ishii is a light-middleweight, standing 5-foot-3-inches tall. When competing, her weight can’t top 80 kilograms, or roughly 176 pounds, though she tries to keep her weight as close to that limit as possible. Every pound adds more power. When she’s not practicing in her dojo — bulldozing competitors, male and female, right out of the ring — Ishii barbell squats metal plates over and over, turning her legs and core into iron.
Ishii is the only woman on Rikkyo University’s legendary sumo team. Her Tokyo dojo is a breeding ground for professional sumo athletes: wrestlers who go on to big money and fame, competing on the sport’s hallowed ground, Kokugikan sumo stadium, even more sacred to sumo than Madison Square Garden is to basketball.
In a fairer world, Ishii might compete there, too, after graduating. After all, she is among the most promising women in her sumo weight class, having snatched the gold medal at 2022’s World Games — a tournament for sports that haven’t yet gained full acceptance at the Olympics.
Yet, her sumo career likely has, at best, only a few years left.
The Japan Sumo Association, a quasi-governmental organization, bars women from competing professionally. It even forbids women from stepping into rings where men compete. Because of these rules, women’s sumo is obscure and misunderstood — even in Japan.
“Honestly,” Ishii said, “when I meet new people, I don’t always say I’m a sumo wrestler. People will ask, ‘Oh, do you do it naked? Because boys do it without clothes on.’”
While men only wear a loincloth in the ring, women in sumo wear the loincloth plus a T-shirt and gym shorts. Even though sumo is Japan’s de facto national sport — practiced in various forms for more than 1,500 years — the idea of women in sumo draws confused looks and laughs.
Professor Suzuki Masataka, a Keio University anthropologist who studies sumo, said the prohibition on women in professional rings comes down to menstruation. Sumo is ancient, he said, and quasi-religious beliefs have accumulated around the sport. Many believe those who menstruate can make a ring impure — and bring terrible luck to future competitors.
“It’s hard to talk about these rules and rituals nowadays because it sounds so sexist,” Suzuki said. “But sumo is a world invented by men. Leaders of the Japan Sumo Association are all male and, frankly, not educated in gender rights. When this issue comes up, they just hope it dies out so they don’t have to change tradition.”
Even if women were allowed into pro sumo, Suzuki said, it probably wouldn’t draw much of a crowd — maybe some gawkers. He said that he believes there is only one path to women’s sumo gaining acceptance in Japanese society: the sport thriving somewhere else first.
This is not such a far-fetched notion.
Sumo has a niche following in Ukraine, Poland, Brazil and parts of the United States. Especially Texas. Sabrina Pacella — who hosts the podcast “Sumo Punx” with her husband, Matt Jim (himself a sumo wrestler) — said that she believes it’s one of the fastest-growing sports in Texas.
“There’s something so pure about going into a ring with the body you were born into,” she said. “It’s such a test of balance and strength and agility.”
In the US, Pacella said, sumo crowds are gender diverse. The wrestlers, however, are mostly men — for now.
“It’s no surprise to anyone that, in our culture, women are expected to be thin and pretty. People see sumo as a sport for fat people bumping bellies.”
Many women do fear “the people in their life will worry about them looking like a stereotypical sumo wrestler,” Pacella said. “And they don’t want that kind of heat … but I don’t know a single person in the American sumo scene who wouldn’t welcome more women into sumo.”
Developing a broad and women-inclusive sumo culture around the world is key to a dream held by many sumo fans: competitions at the Olympics.
“I would be over the moon,” Pacella said.
But it doesn’t help that the Japan Sumo Association — the most influential and moneyed sumo organization on Earth — prevents women in the sport’s homeland from developing their skills. In Japan, women’s sumo is relegated to small, amateur competitions. It’s not a viable career path.
Ishii, outside the ring, is much more chill than her death glare would suggest. When she’s not practicing by knocking big guys off their feet, she reads Japanese comics and hangs with her dad, who puts up wallpaper for a living; the two are so inseparable that they share clothes.
“I dress like a man anyway,” she said, “and besides, my Dad and I are the same size,” though only the younger of the two can barbell squat 100 kilograms (220 pounds) 10 times in a row.
Ishii, lacking career prospects in professional sumo, has decided to do the most with the time she has left as a collegiate athlete. Her mission is to win as many international sumo competitions as possible, “because if I win, I’ll have a bigger voice, and more people will listen to me.”
Her message to Japanese girls and women: Try to love sumo, even if the sport doesn’t always love you back.
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On a recent weekday morning, Monica Castilla stopped her bicycle in a protected bike lane on the busy avenue Paseo de la Reforma to explain why she pedals to her job as a hotel cook in the Zona Rosa area of Mexico City, Mexico.
“You get the stress out. You [get] exercise. And it’s faster,” she said, noting that she cuts her 40-minute bus ride in half on a bike. “And you are not with other people. Oh my God, on the bus everyone is angry. So, I think it’s better (on a bike).”
Monica Castilla cuts her 40-minute bus ride in half by riding a bike.John Burnett/The WorldPeople for Bikes, the respected Boulder, Colorado-based nonprofit, rates cities around the world for their bike networks. Mexico City has one of the highest scores in the Global South, ahead of New York City, Washington DC and even Portland, Oregon — yet is behind Bogotá, Colombia, with its nearly 350 miles of bike trails.
As the world’s fifth largest metropolis, Mexico City now has 250 miles of bike lanes, many of them created during the COVID-19 pandemic when crowded buses and subways were considered virus traps.
Becoming more bike-friendlyIn its crusade to become more bike-friendly, Mexico City closes major avenues in the city center every Sunday and turns them over to cyclists. (This idea started in Bogotá.) Thousands of riders fill the grand Paseo de la Reforma — usually packed with honking taxis and flatulent buses — to leisurely pedal past stately monuments and fountains.
“What we need from motorists is a culture of respect for cyclists. People are distracted. It’s very bad,” said Maricarmen Rodriguez, a 50-year-old medical assistant, who was out for a bike ride with her dog, Nami. John Burnett/The WorldThe idea is to entice people to bike on blocked-off streets and get them to consider commuting to work during the week.
“I work in an office where I cannot exercise, so I come out here on Sundays to ride with [my dog] Nami,” said Maricarmen Rodriguez, a 50-year-old medical assistant.
Rodriguez does not, however, pedal to work.
“My house is on a hill, and there’s too much traffic,” she said. “What we need from motorists is a culture of respect for cyclists. People are distracted. It’s very bad.”
Mexico City’s conundrum is the same faced by every ginormous, gridlocked city in the world: how to get people out of cars and onto bicycles.
Andres Lajous, CDMX’s Secretary of Mobility, gets tired of being compared to Amsterdam, one of the world’s most bikeable cities.
“It’s like, look at Amsterdam. No,” he said. “Mexico City is different. We have to find our own way to do it.”
Lajous is in charge of all public conveyances in this 570-square-mile city: buses, subways, cable cars and the public bike-share system that has nearly 80,000 riders a day.
Andres Lajous, CDMX’s Secretary of Mobility, said that he wants people to know that “it’s easier to bike in Mexico City than what it looks like at first.” He said there’s “infrastructure that helps cyclists bike safely along cars.”John Burnett/The World“I want people to know outside of Mexico City that it’s easier to bike in Mexico City than what it looks like at first,” he said. “We have infrastructure that helps cyclists bike safely along(side) cars.”
Bicycle advocates complain that the city is not doing enough to make cycling safe. They say there’s not enough education for motorcyclists, pedestrians and dog walkers who think the bike lanes are for them. Advocates want the police to ticket motorists who ignore bike paths altogether.
“Every day, there are millions of people riding in their cars, so we need alternatives to that,” said Areli Carreón, a longtime cycling activist who recently stepped down as the “bicycle mayor of CDMX.” “We already have that, but people won’t jump on a bicycle if they’re scared of being run over.”
Areli Carreón, a longtime cycling activist, recently stepped down as the “bicycle mayor of CDMX.” John Burnett/The WorldDrivers are often unsympathetic.
“I’m not against bicycles,” said Edgar Sanchez, who drives a private taxi. “But they should be introduced more slowly. People are against bike lanes on busy streets.”
Despite its chaotic traffic, Mexico City actually has some advantages for cyclists.
“The city’s flat, so you can take a bike and go everywhere,” said Diego Cardenas, a bike builder. “The sun or the heat is not that [intense]. We have very mild weather.”
Cardenas makes bicycle frames from sturdy, lightweight bamboo harvested from Yucatán, Mexico. Since he started in 2010, he’s built more than 2,000 bamboo bicycles.
Diego Cardenas, a bike builder, makes bicycle frames from sturdy, lightweight bamboo harvested from Yucatán, Mexico. John Burnett/The WorldIn one sense, the bicycle is making a comeback.
Bikes have always been popular in Mexico, going back more than a century, but primarily with peoplewho couldn’t afford a car. Certainly, automobiles are a status symbol in a country where 43% of the people live in poverty. But among many urban millennials, bicycles have become de moda, or the latest trend.
“Every day, having more cyclists [makes] motorists more aware of us,” Cardenas said. “I think it’s a work in progress, and I think we’re moving in the right direction.”
Cyclists were heartened by Claudia Sheinbaum’s election on June 2 as Mexico’s first female president. When she was Mexico City’s Secretary of the Environment, she installed the first bike lane in 2004. She continued to support bicycle transportation as mayor of CDMX, pledging in 2022, “Bicycle lanes are part of Mexico City’s sustainable mobility.”
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Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions of war.
Six-year-old Maryam Dheed-FarajAllah stands to greet visitors with such perfect balance that it takes a moment to realize she is missing her right leg.
Maryam survived an Israeli rocket attack in central Gaza on Jan. 9 that killed her parents and her little brother. After several surgeries and a risky medical evacuation out of the Gaza Strip, she is living in Doha, Qatar, with her surviving relatives. Her 19-year-old aunt, Fatima FarajAllah, is her caregiver.
“She’s all I have left of my sister — of my family,” FarajAllah said.
Children like Maryam are disproportionately bearing the scars of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. An estimated 17,000 kids have been orphaned or separated from their parents, according to UNICEF, while at least 3,000 have lost a limb in an injury or amputation.
In Gaza, 41% of the population is under the age of 14, according to Palestinian government figures. A staggering number of people injured in the war have been children, but only a small fraction of them have been able to evacuate. On May 7, Israel took over the Rafah crossing, putting a halt to evacuations entirely.
The small Gulf nation of Qatar has taken in more than 1,600 Palestinians in recent months, including dozens of injured children like Maryam.
Two blasts hit a family homeClick the audio player below to listen to part one of this five-part series:
On Jan. 8, FarajAllah’s extended family gathered in her mother’s home in central Gaza, listening to music and sharing memories. For one night, she said, it felt like there was no war.
But as they looked out the window, they counted 16 Israeli drones in the sky above Nuseirat.
Bombing started the next day, and the family sheltered in two rooms. One of FarajAllah’s sisters, Wafa, sat down to breastfeed her baby boy, Mohammed Suleiman. FarajAllah’s 17-year-old brother, Osama, went to the kitchen to make tea.
The house was hit with two blasts. The first threw FarajAllah out of the room. When she regained consciousness, her 27-year-old sister, Wafa, was dead, her body curled around her baby. The body of her 3-year-old son, Kamal, lay nearby. Maryam’s mother, Reem, was killed alongside her 2-year-old son, also named Mohammed. FarajAllah found her nephew’s body so mangled, she said, she could hardly recognize him.
Maryam was covered in blood, her leg nearly severed.
The World reached out to the Israeli military to ask whether this strike was an accident or intentional. In a statement, a spokesperson wrote, “The Israeli Defense Forces is operating to dismantle Hamas military and administrative capabilities. In stark contrast to Hamas’ intentional attacks on Israeli men, women and children, the IDF follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.”
Maryam, 6, and her aunt, Fatima FarajAllah, are shown in their kitchen at the Al-Thumama Complex in Doha, Qatar. Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldAccording to the Gaza Health Ministry, 126 people in Gaza were killed that day.
FarajAllah and her brother rushed Maryam to a nearby clinic. Eventually, Maryam was transferred to a hospital that could amputate her leg and stop the bleeding. Since no anesthesia was available, doctors had to amputate her leg without it.
Doctors told the family they didn’t think Maryam would survive because there was blood in her chest, FarajAllah said. “The doctor said, ‘Don’t hurry to operate the leg. Just wait because you will bury her with the leg soon.’”
To get Maryam stabilized, FarajAllah knew she had to get her out of Gaza.
For most of the Israel-Hamas war, the only way for Palestinians to leave Gaza has been through the Rafah crossing into Egypt.
Everyone who does not have a foreign passport would have to get their name on “the list,” as it is referred to informally — of those approved by both Israeli and Egyptian authorities to evacuate.
Maryam and FarajAllah are among the lucky ones who made it on the list before May 7, when the Israeli military took over the Rafah border crossing. The military claimed the crossing was being used for “terrorist” purposes. No medical evacuations have been permitted ever since.
“Not because we don’t want to open it, but because it takes two for tango and you need Egypt to cooperate on this,” said Tal Heinrich, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a press conference.
The Egyptian government did not return a request for comment.
Click the audio player below to listen to part two:
Tareq Hailat is a 28-year-old medical student in South Carolina who coordinates medical evacuations for a US-based nonprofit, the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.
PCRF submitted Maryam’s case for approval in January and worked with contacts behind the scenes to get her out quickly. A few days after submitting her file, her name appeared on the list for evacuation. FarajAllah accompanied her.
Every day that a patient waits matters, especially for an amputation like Maryam’s, Hailat said.
Karim Alshayyah, 10, and his mother Rabia sit together in their apartment in Doha. The Alshayyahs waited months for a medical evacuation from Gaza. In Qatar, Karim said he’s most looking forward to a chance to be fitted for a prosthetic limb. Durrie Buscaren/The WorldHe said some people have been waiting for as long as six months to leave.
“It gets really sad, honestly. Because they’re depending on you. They’re messaging me day and night, honestly, saying, ‘Please, pull us out.’”
Before the list stopped going out, the process to get out of Gaza took weeks, said Dr. Tanya Haj Hassan, a Canadian pediatrician who volunteered with Doctors Without Borders at Al-Aqsa Hospital — one of the facilities where Maryam was treated.
“Every person I have tried to evacuate — at least adults — I have failed,” Haj Hassan said.
She said she remembers one young mother who opened a can that she thought was a food ration, but was an unexploded mine.
“She stayed alive for about three weeks in excruciating pain with extensive burns all over her body,” Haj Hassan said.
The woman died while waiting on a medical evacuation in a deeply overwhelmed hospital.
With routes into Gaza restricted and security inspections required for every aid truck, humanitarian assistance has barely trickled into Gaza. Shipments of medical supplies are regularly refused entry to the Gaza Strip, often with no clear reason.
Hospitals don’t have enough supplies to clean wounds, change dressings or even clean bedsheets, leading to infections. With nothing to treat those infections, even minor injuries may require an amputation — often without anesthesia, Haj Hassan said.
“They would say, ‘We only have one vial left — is this really the patient you want to use it on?’ I don’t know how to make these decisions. I’ve never had to make them before.”
Haj Hassan said that amid all of this, children are often the only patients who can get out of Gaza in a medical evacuation. Children are permitted just one parent or guardian to travel with them — but the adult must pass a security clearance from both Egyptian authorities and COGAT, Israel’s ministry that controls civilian movements out of Gaza and the West Bank.
This process predates the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7.
Aseel Aburass, a researcher for the Israeli group Physicians for Human Rights, said that her team found that patients seeking medical care in the West Bank, or even abroad, were regularly denied security clearances for no clear reason.
Roula al-Nazjy smoothes her son Najy’s hair at the Al-Thumama compound in Doha, Qatar. Najy, 3, was injured when the school the family had sheltered in collapsed after a bombing on a mosque nearby. His 5-year-old sister, Miramar, died in the attack.Durrie Bouscaren/The World“We were able to prove that this is an arbitrary system that claims it has security concerns,” Aburass said. “We see it as a collective punishment to the population of Gaza.”
Previously, people could get on the list to leave Gaza more quickly by paying a private company with ties to Egyptian intelligence. This could cost up to $10,000 a person before it was suspended after the Israeli military took over the Rafah crossing. But even a private evacuation required a security clearance by both the Israeli and Egyptian authorities.
According to the government of Gaza, at least 11,000 injured people are still waiting to leave the Gaza Strip for medical care.
Inside the hospital in Qatar Sidra Medicine in Doha has received 160 children medically evacuated from Gaza — including Maryam — since December of last year, when the emir of Qatar pledged to provide treatment to 1,500 Palestinians wounded in the war.
Click the audio player below to listen to part three:
Nine are still staying as inpatients in a quiet ward with a view. Among the hospital’s youngest patients is 18-month-old Sanad al-Arabi, whose cheeks are badly scarred.
His entire right hand and four fingers on his left hand are gone. An IV runs into the stump of Sanad’s right arm as his tiny body tries to fight off a drug-resistant infection.
His grandmother, Marwa al-Arabi, is always by his side, smoothing his hair, tucking the blanket around him. Doctors tell her his body is being pumped with a powerful dose of antibiotics.
“This needs a very intense treatment. They just want to remove this infection from his body because it’s eating him, you know,” she said in Arabic through a translator.
Arabi said the Israeli military bombed their home without warning on April 12 — the last day of Eid. They had been warned to evacuate to the south, Arabi said, but they couldn’t afford to pay for a donkey cart for transport.
Arabi lost three grandchildren in the attack and 11 relatives in total.
She had to dig herself out of the rubble of their home by following a patch of sunlight shining through the stones above her. She found Sanad’s face covered in blood. He was opening and closing his mouth — as if his soul was leaving his body, she said.
Somehow, Sanad survived.
Sanad al-Arabi, 18 months old, and his grandmother, Marwa al-Arabi, made it out of Gaza after losing relatives and their home in April. Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldThe Red Crescent and an American nonprofit, the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, pushed through a lengthy approval process to get Sanad and his grandmother evacuated out of Gaza and into Egypt in a matter of days. From there, they flew to Doha.
Arabi said that at the hospital in Doha, she was finally able to hope that Sanad would be OK. That was what mattered.
Doctors from seven different specialties got to work reconstructing Sanad’s crushed leg and cutting out the infection.
“Getting the arteries to get the blood flowing — his limb survived, really, and even the fracture which looked like it would never heal, seems to be doing quite well,” said Dr. Farhan Ali, the acting chief of pediatric surgery at Sidra Medicine.
Sanad lost his right hand, Ali said, but he kept his legs.
“Children are quite malleable, they do bounce back. They’ll make the most of what they have. But it’s a lifelong injury. These children will bear the scars of this war.”
‘They are doing normal life’ While undergoing treatment at hospitals in Qatar, families — including the FarajAllahs — are settled at the Al-Thumama Complex, a large, gated compound of matching white apartment buildings on the southern edge of Doha, not far from the airport.
Click the audio player below to listen to part four:
In a building that hosts kids’ programs daily, girls and boys clustered around a table and strung colorful beads into bracelets and necklaces. Volunteers wore bright blue vests for the Qatar Foundation, a nonprofit founded by Qatar’s royal family.
“It’s to let them know they are doing normal life,” said Afrah Adem, a coordinator for the complex who is originally from Sudan. “That’s why we have these activities.”
In many cases, Adem said, children are managing both the trauma of what they witnessed in Gaza and fears for their families back home. Many are staying with just one parent or another guardian.
Children make crafts with volunteers at the Al-Thumama Complex in Doha, Qatar. More than 1,600 people from Gaza are staying at the complex, many of whom were evacuated for medical reasons. Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldThe kids go to school and play outside, while a local Palestinian restaurant provides three meals a day. Some of the women staying at Al-Thumama have begun working at the restaurant, Adem said. Families with up to five members are assigned a two-bedroom apartment with a small kitchen, appliances and furniture. Larger families receive two.
Nour Mahdi, 28, arrived a month ago with her three children.
She hasn’t quite adjusted yet. Support staff are often workers from different countries who only speak English, not Arabic — it’s a world away from Gaza, where she was surrounded by extended family, Mahdi said.
She is still waiting for her husband, who is stuck in Gaza: “I need my husband here with me, because I’m so scared. I’m so afraid.”
Yamen Mahdi, 9, plays with his baby brother, Ezadin Mahdi,.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldHer 9-year-old son Yamen does his best to help, making funny faces at the baby, and feeding him with a bottle.
Yamen is recovering from a shrapnel wound to his abdomen.
Karim Alshayyah, 10, sits with his brother at their apartment in Doha, Qatar. Without his lower left leg, Karim cannot play soccer as he used to — but he’s relearning how to ride a bike.
Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldBack home, Yamen said that he and his brother had to go out and collect wood from bombed-out houses so they could burn it to keep warm. He remembers eating birdseed when they ran out of food.
“I preferred to be outside during a bombing,” he said in Arabic through a translator.
That way, he could see where the rockets fell.
One day, when he was playing outside with his cousins, shrapnel from a nearby missile strike tore through his abdomen and caused major damage to his stomach and liver. In a photograph from the hospital in Gaza, his eyes are wide open in shock as doctors try to stabilize him.
In Doha, Yamen has received additional reconstructive surgery and follow-ups. He said that he’s made friends — kids who are also recovering from their own injuries.
‘We remember every single detail’It’s one thing to meet the physical needs of an injured child. It’s another thing entirely to help them process what they lived through in Gaza — especially without their parents.
“This is the thing about trauma — we cannot measure trauma only through what happens to individuals. It’s about the social fabric, how we view ourselves, how we view others,” said Dr. Samah Jabr, head of the mental health unit of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in a March webinar organized by The University of British Columbia.
As the heat of the day dissipates, children play outside in the courtyards of the Al-Thumama Complex in Doha, Qatar. Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldIn 2020, a study funded by the Qatar National Research Fund found that more than half of Palestinian children surveyed suffered from PTSD. Western mental health techniques don’t work, in the context of Gaza, Jabr said. For example, if a therapist is trying to treat a child who’s being abused, the first step is to stop the abuse.
“Everything else we can offer in psychiatry is palliative. It has a very small impact. It can be meaningless sometimes,” Jabr said.
In Doha, evacuees have found their own ways to help their kids heal.
Click the audio player below to listen to part five:
On the airplane from Egypt to Doha, Maryam woke up screaming. She was convinced that her little brother was in the airplane next to her, her aunt recalled.
FarajAllah said that she fears that the trauma of losing her family will follow Maryam throughout her life. So, she does her best to stay calm — not to get lost in her grief.
“I don’t want her to see the weakness inside of me,” FarajAllah said.
She only has videos from her cellphone to show Maryam what her little brother and parents looked like. What her life was like before the war.
Kids play soccer at the Al-Thumama Complex in Doha, Qatar. Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldBut although Maryam asks to see them every night, FarajAllah said, she demurs. Instead, she tells her stories. About their garden — the parties their family would have together. The special maqluba, a rice and meat dish, which Maryam’s mother, Reem, would make. In that way, she keeps her memory alive.
“We remember every single detail,” she said.
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When North Korea hacked Alejandro Caceres, he expected the US government to rush to his defense. When they just shrugged, he took matters into his own hands.
Click the blue player above to hear the full story.
An earlier version of this story appeared on the “CLICK HERE” podcast from Recorded Future News. Additional reporting by Sean Powers.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in the Middle East pushing for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. He’s meeting with regional leaders for the eighth time since last October.
In addition to Gaza and the north of Israel, there’s another concern for the Biden White House that is not going away — the possibility of war erupting between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Shia militia has been firing rockets into Israel from their positions in southern Lebanon, saying it’s a show of support for Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel has been retaliating with airstrikes.
In an exclusive interview in Beirut with The World’s Shirin Jaafari, Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said that his country cannot afford an all-out war with Israel. Jaafari spoke to Marco Werman and Bou Habib about the conflict.
Marco Werman: What is the situation right now with these cross-border attacks between Israel and Hezbollah? Shirin Jaafari: In southern Lebanon, which is about two hours’ drive from the capital, Beirut, there are almost daily exchanges. Israel carries out airstrikes, and then, Hezbollah sends rockets and drones into Israel. And in fact, yesterday, we were reporting in the south and we heard two airstrikes, one right after the other. And these were not far from where we were reporting, and we saw the smoke in the sky. We weren’t able to reach these areas, but it was just a reminder of how unstable the situation is right now in that part of the country. Marco Werman: So, we’re speaking about Hezbollah, which is carrying out these attacks against Israel, but it’s not part of the Lebanese military, of course. Where does Lebanon’s government actually stand in the midst of all this? Shirin Jaafari: Lebanon doesn’t have a government at the moment. It actually hasn’t had one for the past 18 months. It has a caretaker government. That’s because politicians can’t really agree on the makeup of the government. Just a little background here. Politics in Lebanon is based on a sectarian power-sharing structure. The three main government positions are the president, prime minister and the parliament speaker. They must be split between a Maronite Christian, a Sunni Muslim and a Shia muslim. And there’s been a deadlock about the makeup of this government for months. And so, there is no unity when it comes to its position on what Hezbollah is doing. Marco Werman: And within that government, there’s the office of the foreign minister, the caretaker foreign minister. Shirin Jaafari: Exactly. I had an opportunity to sit down with the foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, who is Christian, and he used to be Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations. We spoke at his office last Friday. Shirin Jaafari: Are you in discussion with Hezbollah about the situation in the South, and what are you telling them? Abdallah Bou Habib: We are always in discussion with Hezbollah as well as the Lebanese party. They are represented everywhere, at the bottom, especially; what we’re telling them, what we’re talking about, that we want ceasefire. […] So, it is Israel who will decide whether they want ceasefire or not. And Lebanon is asking for a ceasefire. And we discuss these issues with Hezbollah all the time. Shirin Jaafari: Well, Hezbollah has also been firing rockets into Israel. Abdallah Bou Habib: And Israel has been firing rockets and using the Air Force and using drones to Lebanon as well. Yeah. There is a small war going on in south Lebanon, and I think the Israelis are extending the war to test Hezbollah, to find out what kind of weapons Hezbollah has. Shirin Jaafari: And when you talk to Hezbollah, what do they tell you about what they want? And also, do you have any influence? Does the Lebanese government have any influence over Hezbollah?Abdallah Bou Habib: Their leader, Mr. Hassan Nasrallah, said it very clearly. If this war ends up with all occupied area being liberated, this will be a great achievement. And we cannot stop the resistance movement when we have land which is occupied. So, it’s up to Israel. Implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 means that the occupation of Lebanese land would end and would go to the national border, which were agreed with Israel in 1949 under the auspices of the United Nations. We agreed on the borders. We want to go back to those borders. And if we go back to those borders, of course, the Lebanese government would work with Hezbollah in order to stop any of the military appearances themselves. Marco Werman: Shirin, I’m wondering about the comment there from the Lebanese foreign minister about the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Help us out with some context here.Shirin Jaafari: After the war between Israel and Lebanon ended in 2006, the United Nations Security Council issued a resolution which stated that Hezbollah should disarm and stop its attacks on Israel, and that Israeli forces should withdraw to behind what’s called the Blue Line. The Blue Line is a demarcation line dividing Lebanon and Israel, and it’s not an official border. Today, as we know, Hezbollah has not disarmed, and Lebanon accuses Israel of not fully withdrawing from its territories. And this is what the foreign minister is referring to — these contested areas in south of Lebanon. Marco Werman: Right. OK. So, we know the situation now in Lebanon is pretty tense and people are worried about what happens next. You put that question to the foreign minister. Shirin Jaafari: Yes. Shirin Jaafari: What are you concerned about when it comes to the situation with Hezbollah and Israel? What are your concerns about what could happen? Abdallah Bou Habib: You know, we had 15 years of war in Lebanon, and before that, we had some instability because […] refugees were operating against Israel from Lebanon. And this is really hitting very strongly on all Lebanon. And 15 years of war, of destruction and bloodshed was enough for us. We don’t want any war. We don’t want a civil war. There’s a lot of us who do not support what Hezbollah is doing in the south, but it doesn’t mean we go to war with Hezbollah. Nobody wants to do that. … The government doesn’t want to do that at all, you know. So, that is why we would like to see ceasefire in south Lebanon. And we hoped that United States would accept the call for a ceasefire in south Lebanon, and we’ll see what happens. Shirin Jaafari: Can the Lebanese government pressure Hezbollah to stop? Abdallah Bou Habib:Hezbollah is more or less retaliating for Israeli attacks. Shirin Jaafari: Whether it’s retaliating or not, it adds to the continuation of the war, right?Abdallah Bou Habib: There’s no doubt about that. Israel is occupying land. And there’s a big war in Gaza, and there is a lot of people who feared they were anti-occupation of land […] And they have sympathy for what’s going on in Gaza. But if the United Nations would call for a ceasefire in south Lebanon, we would be sure that Hezbollah would also stop fighting Israel.Shirin Jaafari: How would you do that? Abdallah Bou Habib: We’ll do that. We’ll do that. I mean, I’m not sure if I have the plan or not yet.Shirin Jaafari: Are you going to be asking for help from outside influence on Hezbollah? No. We’ll discuss it with them. We are all citizens of same country. We always discuss issues with each other, and we continue to do that. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
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More than 55 million people worldwide have some form of dementia: problems with memory, thinking and the ability to perform daily activities. It’s a leading cause of death for older adults around the world.
Now, scientists may have landed on a way to detect the most frequent cause of dementia, Alzheimer’s, earlier with a ten-minute brain scan and machine learning.
The study was published last week in the journal Nature Mental Health. The World’s host Carolyn Beeler spoke with Charles Marshall, a neurologist at Queen Mary University of London and the lead researcher for the study, to learn more.
Carolyn Beeler: How did you conduct this study?Charles Marshall: We know that when people get symptoms of dementia, their brains have been changing for at least 10 to 20 years by that time, and so we were very keen to find better ways of identifying those brain changes early on. So, we used functional MRI brain scans from people in the UK Biobank cohort who had gone on to develop dementia in the years after their brain scan and compared them to people in the same cohort who’d had brain scans and not gone on to develop dementia.And the UK Biobank is just a depository for brain scans, is that right?So, the UK Biobank is a study of over half a million people from the UK. It’s a big, kind of medical database. And so, we looked at how strong the connections were between the brain regions in the default mode network. We then trained a machine learning tool to recognize what a dementia-like pattern of connectivity looked like. We showed that that pattern of connectivity was then able to differentiate people who would go on to develop dementia from people who weren’t going to develop dementia up to nine years in the future, with more than 80% accuracy.What about the risk of false positives and also just being diagnosed with something when there might not be a lot that you could do to stave off the worst impacts of that diagnosis?I agree, it’s a real worry, and I think it’s a worry with some of the other emerging tests — we’ve got the new blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease, for example — so I think we need to be very careful before we start suggesting that people without symptoms go and have a test like this to get a diagnosis. So, I think, at the moment, it’s a research tool for people who want to be involved in preventive studies, but I don’t think it’s ready for clinical use yet. And I don’t think that people should be going and having these tests to see if they’re going to get dementia in the future outside of a research study.What kind of current tools already exist for early dementia diagnosis?Well, there’s been a lot of interest in tests that can tell whether you have the proteins accumulating in your brain that cause Alzheimer’s disease. And we’re getting better and better at finding those proteins in people’s brains. The difficulty is that many people live with those proteins in their brain for decades without ever developing symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. So, to be really precise about who’s going to get dementia in the future, we would ideally want to combine those tests with something that can give us an early indication that someone’s brain is starting to fail, and that’s what this type of functional MRI analysis could do. So, it could be used alongside current tests that we’ve got.And right now, of course, there’s no cure for dementia. There are some treatments that help slow the onset of symptoms. Exactly how would this earlier identification of patients who might get dementia help?Well, at the moment, we can see from the trials of the new treatments that are emerging for Alzheimer’s disease that they seem to be more effective the earlier they’re given. But that’s in people who’ve already got symptoms. So, there’s good reason to think that if we could go even earlier and treat people before they get symptoms when they’ve still got lots of brain cells to save, they’d be more effective still. The difficulty we have at the moment is that it’s very hard to run that type of study because you need so many people, and you need to follow them for such a long time that it becomes very expensive and difficult to do. So, with this type of test, we could find people who are at a high risk of getting dementia in the next five years, say, and we could then run a study without needing quite so many people and without it being such a barrier to testing treatments to find something that can prevent the development of dementia in the future.So, do you see this as potentially being used as a diagnostic tool in a wider population, or is this just a step toward studying preventive drugs for dementia?I think it could be both. So, I think one of the things that we’re very keen to do next is to see whether it would be helpful as part of the diagnostic process, when somebody at that later stage has symptoms and goes to a doctor to find out whether they’ve got Alzheimer’s disease or not. So, we would like to extend the work in that direction. But with what we’ve found already, it could be a very useful tool for selecting people to go into a trial.How do you think about dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and its ability to be treated going into the future?I think that we are behind where we are with other diseases. I think that cancer is decades ahead of us, but we’re in a very exciting phase because we’re seeing that there are treatments that can slow Alzheimer’s disease for the first time. These are just the first treatments emerging, and there are lots more being developed. So, I’m confident that we will continue to make progress.Not asking you to look into your crystal ball here, but do you have any sort of estimate of when there might be significantly better treatments or preventive options for things like dementia?If we take other diseases as an example, from the first effective treatments to having highly effective treatments, has been within 10 to 20 years, typically in other disease areas. So, I’d hopeful that we’d be on a similar trajectory.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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Six years ago, Nuria Vidal and her two kids suddenly had to pack their things and find a new place to live.
“My rental agreement expired, and the landlord raised the new rent by 50%,” she said. “From around $1,100 to $1,600, from one day to the next.”
Nuria Vidal is being forced to move out of her apartment building after she and other residents received an unspecified eviction notice from property management. Renters later found out they were being evicted so their homes could be turned into short-term rentals instead.Gerry Hadden/The WorldVidal eventually found a new place in a quiet city neighborhood. It’s a spacious, sunny three-bedroom apartment in an early 20th-century townhouse. It’s perfect, and to Vidal, it seems as if she could live there pretty much forever.
But now, she’s packing up, again — and this time, it isn’t because the owner is jacking up the price.
“They sent us eviction notices by fax as our contracts were ending, without saying why,” she said. “But later, we learned that they’re converting the apartments into short-term rentals for tourists. We’ve all got to move out.”
The World contacted the property management company that manages the building for an interview but received no response.
“This switch from long-term renters to short-stay tourists can be painful for tenants, but it’s perfectly legal — and much more lucrative for landlords,” said Francisco Iñareta, spokesman for Idealista, southern Europe’s largest online property portal.
Renting to tourists really took off a year ago, Iñareta said, when the government put price caps on long-term rentals yet left the short-term rental biz largely unregulated.
“The supply of long-term rental flats has dropped 15% since the law was passed, While the short-term supply grew by 60%. It’s just perverse.”
Francisco Iñareta, spokesman for Idealista, southern Europe’s largest online property portal
“The supply of long-term rental flats has dropped 15% since the law was passed, while the short-term supply grew by 60%. It’s just perverse,” Iñareta said.
In Barcelona, nearly a third of all rental apartments are now set aside for weekend visitors from Warsaw or Parisians passing through on holiday.
For each flat that comes on the market, Iñareta said that there are now 40 people applying. A year ago, the average was 27 applicants per flat, according to a study commissioned by Idealista.
Lack of housing, high costs of living and other local stressors have led to protests against mass tourism across Spain recently as the country braces for a record 100 million visitors by the year’s end.
People march during a mass demonstration against over tourism which affects the local population with inaccessible housing among other things in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, April 20, 2024. The protests are taking place this Saturday in various Canary Islands. Banner reads “Canary Islands have limits.”Miguel Velasco Almendral/AP“This is all the result of Spain aggressively promoting tourism for decades. It’s too late to stuff that genie back in the bottle,” said Iñareta, whose company, Idealista, profits off of the real estate market.
He said a solution to the problem would be to build more housing.
But a few property owners in Barcelona see things differently.
Sisters Estela Guitart and Nausica Guitart recently inherited their parents’ flat. They plan to rent it but not with an eye on profits, Nausica Guitart said.
Sisters Estela Guitart and Nausica Guitart plan to rent out the flat they inherited from their parents at an affordable rate, pricing their flat below the official cap.Gerry Hadden/The World“Rental prices have skyrocketed so much that we’re taking an ethical approach as landlords. Rent should be something people can handle,” she said. If landlords would just stop with the “get rich overnight” mentality, her sister Estela Guitart added,” we wouldn’t need rental control laws to begin with.”
In fact, the Guitart sisters are pricing their flat below the official cap. And who is their new tenant? Vidal, the mother of two who was evicted from her old apartment to make room for tourists.
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For more than a year, Sudan has been gripped by a devastating civil war — between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Few foreign journalists have managed to get inside the country, much less spend significant time witnessing the violence there.
But Declan Walsh, Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, managed to get access and traveled across Sudan over several weeks, along with photographer Ivor Prickett. Their reporting crystallizes the toll of the war.
Marco Werman: What has the impact of the war been like on the capital, Khartoum?Declan Walsh: Parts of the city are almost unrecognizable at this stage. We were mostly in Omdurman, which is in the western part of the capital, and we were in areas that were controlled by both the Sudanese military, but also areas that the Sudanese military had recently recaptured from their enemy (paramilitary group), the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). And in those areas, it was a picture of utter devastation. There were entire streets where all of the buildings had either been damaged by fighting or had been looted. There was a lot of evidence of missile and shellfire. We spoke to residents, a couple of whom had actually stayed on during the fighting, and they described just how intense it had been. And broadly speaking, hospitals are destroyed or closed and you’ve got these large parts of the city that have either been ruined by the fighting or are still being contested by these two sides.Yeah, and just looking at the skyline of Khartoum from Omdurman, let’s remember, this was a very big, very developed capital city. What changed?That’s right. I mean, Khartoum was in the top 10 most populous cities in Africa. It’s a city that had known effectively a century of peace ever since the era of British colonialism, even though there had been a number of very significant wars inside Sudan. They’d mostly been fought in the peripheries of the country, and Khartoum had been left largely untouched. It’s a city that had known some degree of wealth. Sudan had an oil boom during the 1990s. It’s had a great infusion of wealth from gold mining over the last decade. It’s a city that had a lot of deep poverty … but also high-rise buildings with mirrored glass, they had five-star hotels overlooking the Nile (river) [and] a very big international airport right in the middle of the city. Pretty much all of that is gone at this stage. What we could see from across the Nile was this downtown area where there are major government ministries, the presidential palace, luxury hotels. And we know from our reporting, and also from what we could see in the distance, that they’ve been largely destroyed at this point, in many cases burned out or places that have been pocked by so much shellfire because they had been contested by the two sides.Did you see any sign, Declan, that one side or the other has the upper hand in Khartoum, suggesting some kind of end to the fighting?There had been some advances for the Sudanese military earlier this year. They had suffered a whole series of stinging defeats last fall, principally outside Khartoum. And then, in the new year, they launched an offensive in this area, Omdurman of western Khartoum, and they did manage to snatch back some territory. But still, large parts of Omdurman remain in RSF hands. In the north of the city, we saw evidence of intense fighting, a lot of smoke in the air. So, the short answer is that, no, it doesn’t seem that either side is winning, and instead, both sides are stocking up it seams with weapons, some of them supplied by foreign countries that have piled into this war on either side. And so, the fighting is getting more intense. And at the same time, that’s making the humanitarian situation for those civilians who are still remaining in the city worse than it’s ever been.People prepare food in a Khrtoum neighborhood on June 16, 2023.AP/File photoSpeaking of the humanitarian situation, from your reporting, it seems one of the most disturbing aspects of this war is how hospitals have become targets. What remains of Sudan’s medical infrastructure?It’s really on the point of collapse at this point. At least half of the hospitals in Khartoum state are closed at this point. Many of them bombed. And those hospitals that remain are under huge strain. We were in hospitals where people were sleeping two to a bed. Doctors told us that they were receiving hundreds of new cases every day, and they just weren’t able to deal with them. There are huge shortages of medicine and basic supplies. One of the most striking things while we were there was that we didn’t see a single person from an international aid agency or a medical organization the entire time we were there. That’s for security reasons. That’s because those agencies say they have a lot of difficulty even getting permission to travel to those areas. But it also tells you that this is a burgeoning crisis with really very, very limited resources. Probably one of the most disturbing things that we found was there’s just a single pediatric hospital still functioning in the city, and that has a very crowded malnutrition ward, which is largely full of infants who’ve been brought from across the city by often desperate parents looking to give them life-saving medicine and food to try and save them.Why do you think Sudan has not gotten more attention as a crisis?Well, in part, it’s just simply because of this lack of access for the international press. Reporters simply haven’t been able to get into the country, for the most part, in the last year. But it’s also a country or a conflict, that’s been overshadowed by the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. I think those are wars that obviously have been much higher priorities for Western policymakers. And there’s been a sense that the war in Sudan is smaller stakes. But it seems to me that as the involvement of outside powers in this war is increasing — countries like Russia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates — there’s now a sense that the sort of geopolitical stakes of the Sudan war are increasing, and it seems to be starting to get at least a measure of greater attention abroad than it was before. For the large part, many people are really despairing. They feel that the world has forgotten their plight, that the world is not really watching the suffering and isn’t taking account of the vast scale of what’s going on in Sudan.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Related: The US is helping the ICC investigate war crimes in Sudan, diplomat says
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Just inside the main entrance to the ParkShopping Canoas mall, people stand waiting in a long line, carrying backpacks and rolling luggage. On the wall beside them is a cartoon drawing of a big white airplane painted on a blue background. The words “Terminal ParkShopping Canoas” hover above.
This is the check-in for the Canoas Air Force Base, which is located a few miles away — the new substitute airport for Porto Alegre in southern Brazil. It’s become the new hub for flights in and out of the city since devastating floods hit the region, rendering the main airport inoperable.
ParkShopping Canoas mall is serving as a hub for airport check-ins in Brazil after flooding shut down the main airport.Michael Fox/The World“We have to adapt, right?” said 28-year-old mechanical engineer Vidara Rodrigues, who is flying back to São Paulo — the main destination for flights leaving the region. “Unfortunately, that’s our only option. But I think it’s well organized and everyone’s really doing their best to make this work.”
Passengers are greeted for the airport check-in just like at the actual airport, complete with dividers showing people where to line up. In this case, though, they are surrounded by shoppers and there’s even a mini ice skating rink nearby. The passengers are used to the drill, but this is definitely different. Uniformed employees guide them toward the counter, and a bus departs about an hour and a half before the flight to drive passengers to the military base.
People wait in line to check in at the Porto Alegre substitute airport in southern Brazil.Courtesy of Billy Valdez/Coletivo Catarse“I think this was a great idea,” said Artur Suzuki Kano, a dentist also headed to Sao Paulo. “Because, like it or not, it’s the only airport or air base that can really serve this area.”
LATAM Airlines ran the first flight into Canoas last week. On Saturday, two more airlines, Gol and Azul, began services. Together, they’ll be offering five flights in and out of the city each day.
LATAM Airlines’ first flight to Canoas since massive flooding disrupted air travel across southern Brazil.Courtesy of Divulgação LATAMThe frequency of flights has also increased at seven other airports across southern Brazil to try to meet demand.
“With these airports, along with the Canoas flights, we hope to do more than 280 additional flights to the region in June,” said LATAM pilot Derick Barboza, who spoke with a Brazilian news outlet last week, after flying in on the first flight.
That’s still less than 10% of the total flights in and out of Porto Alegre on an average month. But it’s a start.
ParkShopping Canoas mall in Brazil that is doubling up as an airport check-in location.Michael Fox/The WorldUnprecedented floodsThe unprecedented floods have continued to wreak havoc on Porto Alegre and the region. The country’s south received three months’ worth of rain in just two weeks. Because the rain won’t stop, the water is also taking a long time to recede. Half a million people are still unable to return to their homes.
“We’re living one day at a time,” said 21-year-old Alisson Padilha da Silva, who was in a shelter for days after his family lost everything to the floods. He works at a sporting goods store in the mall, just across from check-in.
“We’re living one day at a time.”
Alisson Padilha da Silva, resident of Porto Alegre
“Psychologically, I’m really shaken,” he said. “I saw a lot of things. But I had to get back to work. I had to get back to my routine. I have to work to buy my things back.”
He said that for stores at the mall, the airport check-in here has been a great thing.
“The number of customers has gone up a lot,” he said. “There are people asking for things that we don’t have, so we’ve started stocking things we never thought of before.”
The situation isn’t likely to change anytime soon.
Downtown Porto Alegre amid massive flooding across southern Brazil.Michael Fox/The WorldPorto Alegre’s international airport remains underwater. Planes sitting on the runway look like giant birds floating on a lake. Officials, who visited it on Monday, say it won’t be ready until December.
“I think we need a goal. Like, for example, getting it operational by Christmas,” said Paulo Pimenta, the government minister leading the reconstruction effort in the state. “The body overseeing the airport has said that all navigation and signaling equipment will need to be repurchased. If the order were placed today, for example, we would only receive it in four months,” he explained.
“Furthermore, this order can only be made after we have completed a thorough review of all the damage, and that will take 45 days, on top of the time we will need for testing and installation.”
Eduardo Neves and his mother had to reschedule their trip to Rio de Janeiro four times because of massive flooding in the southern Brazil region.Courtesy of Billy Valdez/Coletivo CatarsePassenger Eduardo Neves said he went to see the state of the airport for himself a few weeks ago.
“It was total chaos. Totally flooded,” he said.
Neves was flying to Rio de Janeiro with his mom. It’s a trip they had scheduled for the beginning of May. But then the floods hit and it had to be rescheduled four times.
“We’re finally going,” he said. “It’s a little complicated because we aren’t used to this process. But it’s easier to come here than to any of the other airports in the region that are farther away.”
Buses are the other main means of transportation in and out of Porto Alegre. But the city’s bus terminal has also been underwater, so interstate transportation has been running through the town of Osorio about an hour and a half away.
Airline industry analysts say Brazil has never had an international airport knocked out like this for months, so these are make-shift solutions in times of crisis. Nor has there been a need to substitute in an air force base.
And, for now, it seems to be working.
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The Kurodas aren’t your average couple.
Yuko Kuroda and her husband, Takashi Kuroda, live in a modest, two-story home in Tokyo’s outskirts. Both in their early 40s, Yuko Kuroda works at a daycare center, while Takashi Kuroda has a white-collar job: statistical analysis.
“Yeah, I’d say we’re both pretty weird,” Yuko Kuroda said.
She refers to the fact that having five children is a rarity in today’s Japan. Just a few generations ago, in the years after World War II, the average Japanese woman gave birth to five children, just like Yuko Kuroda, but nowadays, that is nowhere near the case.
In contemporary Japan, roughly one-third of women under the age of 50 do not have children. Couples who choose to raise kids usually stop at one.
“I know we’re doing a crazy thing,” Takashi Kuroda said.
Takashi Kuroda, his face streaked with black marker, just emerged from a rolling-on-the-floor play session with his son and daughter, aged 3 and 6, on a Sunday afternoon. The children drew whiskers on his cheeks while shouting, “Neko! Neko!” (Japanese for “cat”).
Takashi Kuroda’s son painting whiskers with a black market in his face.Patrick Winn/The World“I really recommend this lifestyle,” he said. “Raising five kids is fun.”
Japan’s officialdom would rejoice if more couples agreed to have children. The country’s low birth rate has become a “national emergency,” according to the government.
New data shows that for every baby born, two people pass away. Officials warn that if the birth rate doesn’t rise, Japan could become unrecognizable in decades to come: less affluent, less vibrant and less powerful.
What currently is deterring couples from raising children is being associated with overwork and sky-high housing prices.
But one of the major factors concerns dads “doing too little around the house,” according to Mary Brinton, a Harvard University sociologist who has studied Japanese demographics for decades and has even advised Japanese officials.
Traditionally, when Japanese couples have children, “women do most the housework and child care,” Brinton said, and for working moms, the idea of holding down what is essentially a second, unpaid full-time job is “not very attractive.”
According to her research, many Japanese women simply refuse to have a second or third child.
Among the world’s high-income countries, including the US, fathers average more than two hours of daily housework and child care. In Japan, the average is only about 40 minutes.
But what erased Yuko Kuroda’s reluctance in raising five kids was that Takashi Kuroda wasn’t afraid to wipe a butt or wash a dish.
“If one of the kids falls ill, he’ll immediately ask for a day off from work,” she said. “He won’t even hesitate.”
The Kuroda family posing for a family picture.Courtesy of the Kuroda familyTakashi Kuroda believes raising Japan’s birth rate requires a revolution in fatherhood. More than a decade ago, the government launched a social engineering campaign urging fathers to become ikumen, a Japanese word that loosely translates to “super dads.”
Through public service announcements, namely posters, websites and online videos, Japan promoted this ideal of fatherhood. The ikumeneagerly burp babies, change diapers and walk toddlers to the park. The imagery, Brinton said, usually showed a “quite-attractive man with a baby strapped to his chest. It’s an effort to say, ‘This is masculinity too.’”
Fathering Japan, a nonprofit organization, contracted with the government to promote an “ikumen boom” and teach fathers, through in-person classes, how to care for kids and do chores.
Manabu Tsukagoshi, a director with the group, believes it has successfully shifted fathers’ mindsets across Japan. But workplace culture is much harder to change.
Plenty of dads now want to live as ikumen, Tsukagoshi said, but — especially in white-collar jobs — they might toil for old-fashioned bosses who pressure workers to stay late and, after hours, bond over beer and sake.
Japan’s paternity leave policies are now among the best in the world, but too many fathers fear taking time off work and risking the disapproval of their bosses or colleagues.
“I’m actually a bit ashamed of our Japanese men,” Tsukagoshi said. “As employees, we have rights, but men hesitate to break from the norm. If other guys in the office aren’t taking paternity leave, they won’t feel keen to be the first.”
But Takashi Kuroda is hopeful. He believes the revolution in fatherhood — in which dads stand up to corporations and put family first — is on the horizon.
Fifteen years ago, the rate of fathers taking paternity leave was almost zero. Only in recent years, it’s edged up to roughly 15% while by the decade’s end, Japan’s government hopes to up the rate to 85%.
“I think we’ve hit a turning point. Younger Japanese dads don’t feel like they have to belong to one company. So, they’re not terrified of their bosses … and will stand up for themselves.”
Takashi Kuroda, Japanese father
“I think we’ve hit a turning point,” Takashi Kuroda said.
He credits Gen Z fathers for helping redefine what it means to be an attentive dad, unlike their own fathers, who often stuck with a corporation their entire working lives.
“Younger Japanese dads don’t feel like they have to belong to one company. So, they’re not so terrified of their bosses … and will stand up for themselves,” he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which saw more parents working at home, spurred a higher number of fathers to refocus on family, Takashi Kuroda said.
He’s among the fathers who not only demanded paternity leave but took an entire year off for his third child, also insisting on remote work.
By any measure, Takashi Kuroda is an ikumen. Yet, he recoils at the term.
“That’s a peculiar word to me,” he said.
Yuko Kuroda noted the absurdity of men exalted about just raising their own children: “No one gives women a word for taking care of kids. Why only men?”
By late afternoon, Yuko Kuroda read to her children from a storybook while Takashi Kuroda was in the kitchen, elbows deep in dirty dishes. The sink was full of bowls used for breakfast, and water-logged noodles swirled around the drain. He looked silly — the cat whiskers remaining on his face — as he radiated joy.
“I’m very, very, very happy,” he said.
When asked if he’d be happy to have a sixth child, he answered maybe, as Yuko Kuroda popped in to end the questioning.
“No way,” she said. “Our car only seats seven people. This is it.”
Aya Asakura contributed to this report.
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An earlier version of this story appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune and KUER. Read the original story here. The Great Salt Lake Collaborative provided funding.
When Miyrbek Mirzamuratov was a kid in the 1970s, he went to a summer camp in Uzbekistan each year on the shore of the Aral Sea — until recently, the world’s fourth-largest lake.
Mirzamuratov and the other campers, known as Young Pioneers, spent the summers watching Soviet films at the camp’s cinema and wading along the sandy beach.
Children play on a rusty boat in Moynaq, Uzbekistan. Although the Aral Sea region is often referred to as one of the world’s greatest environmental disasters, the lake’s salty waters still abound with life, including brine shrimp, a key food source in the world’s growing aquaculture industry.Levi Bridges/The WorldBut each year, the lake shrunk further away from the camp. As the waters receded, the facility closed and was torn down.
The beach where Mirzamuratov once played was swallowed by the surrounding desert.
“We always thought the water would come back someday. We never worried about it as kids,” Mirzamuratov said.
Soviet authorities diverted the lake’s main tributaries to feed Uzbekistan’s growing agriculture industry. In just a few decades, the lake receded so much that it became saline, killing off all the fish.
The dry lakebed of the Aral Sea in western Uzbekistan. Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, the Aral Sea shrunk dozens of miles from its former shoreline because its main tributaries were diverted to agriculture during the Soviet era.Levi Bridges/The WorldFamilies like Mirzamuratov’s, who worked in the fishery, lost their jobs.
Mirzamuratov made a living fishing in small lakes located in one of the main tributaries feeding the Aral Sea.
But recently, as water levels continued to drop, fish disappeared there, too.
An unexpected opportunityKazakhstan spent millions damming off a portion of the North Aral Sea to keep the freshwater fishery viable. But on the lake’s southern end, in neighboring Uzbekistan, officials didn’t make strong conservation efforts.
Despite the inaction, life returned to the Uzbek side. Tiny brine shrimp, which likely hitchhiked to the region on the feathers of migrating birds, proliferated in the salty waters.
The shrimp’s eggs, commonly known as cysts, are used around the world as feed in aquaculture for farm-raised fish and prawns.
A seasonal encampment on the Aral Sea where workers sleep after long days gathering brine shrimp eggs, commonly known as cysts. Uzbek fishermen work shifts up to 36 hours when the wind blows the cysts to shore and camp in temperatures that can dip to as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter.Levi Bridges/The WorldSeafood is the main protein source for billions of people. And roughly half of it is now produced by aquaculture.
Brine shrimp have become such a crucial part of the world’s growing aquaculture industry that harvesting their cysts is a multi-million dollar industry.
Unemployed fishermen like Mirzamuratov went back to work gathering cysts on the Aral Sea, which has receded so far that the shoreline is now a half day’s drive from Uzbekistan’s former port of Moynaq.
Uzbek fisherman Miyrbek Mirzamuratov draws a long net through the Aral Sea to gather tiny brine shrimp cysts, part of a multi-million dollar industry that forms the backbone of the world’s aquaculture industry.Levi Bridges/The WorldThey draw long, plastic nets attached to sticks through the water to collect cysts, filling sacks with hundreds of pounds on a good day and working in winter temperatures that can dip as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Some people even buy new houses and cars from working here,” said brine shrimp fisherman Islambek Shumomurodov as he swirled a net through the water.
Solutions to new threatsBut brine shrimp have a new vulnerability that threatens to jeopardize how we feed the planet. Salt lakes where they live are disappearing because of climate change and overuse of water.
The ecosystem of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, home to the world’s largest source of brine shrimp, nearly collapsed in 2022 because the lake dipped to record lows, largely from overconsumption of the state’s water resources for agriculture.
The Aral Sea in Uzbekistan has continued to recede and become more saline for the same reason.
Scientists believe it will soon become too salty even for brine shrimp to survive.
Biologist Ablatdiyn Musaev runs experiments in a tank full of little brine shrimp at the Uzbek Academy of Sciences. Researchers are studying how to raise brine shrimp in small man-made ponds because the natural salt lakes they live in are disappearing from climate change and overuse of water resources.Levi Bridges/The WorldUzbek and international researchers are now running experiments to learn how to successfully farm brine shrimp in small ponds to save their industry.
Results so far hold promise — soil in the Aral Sea region where the lake disappeared has a high salt content that the shrimp like.
“Farming brine shrimp isn’t rocket science,” said Ablatdiyn Musaev, an Uzbek Academy of Sciences biologist leading the research. “Unlike traditional aquaculture, for fish, you don’t need high-tech equipment or even a lot of water.”
The sun rises over the Aral Sea in western Uzbekistan. Scientists believe the lake will soon become too salty to support marine life which would deal a devastating blow to the local economy.Levi Bridges/The WorldOther Asian countries are also ramping up production of cysts through pond-based agriculture.
Iran hopes to more than quintuple its annual cyst production in the next five years, according to Naser Agh, an Iranian biologist and member of the Steering Committee of the International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium who has spearheaded the development of Iran’s cyst production.
“There is an opportunity for Asian countries to meet the needs of the growing aquaculture industry,” Agh said.
The parched lakebed in Uzbekistan, which has been called one of the world’s greatest environmental disasters, may also soon play a key role in helping to feed the world’s growing population.
Leia Larsen contributed to this report.
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Over the weekend, a citywide event called the “Pink Soup Festival” was hosted in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. Over 1,000 people sat together at a table the length of four football fields to share this Latvian and Lithuanian delicacy.
People eat pink soup at a table 362 meters long during the Pink Soup Festival celebration in Vilnius, Lithuania, June 1, 2024. Mindaugas Kulbis/APEvent participants set the record for the most people eating pink soup at once, together, while they beat spoons against their bowls in anticipation for the event to start.
Though only in its second year, the Vilnius Pink Soup Festival has already caused a bit of a stir as the city’s tourism agency might have just started a public beef between Latvia and Lithuania over cold beet soup.
Vilnius tourism agency statement on which cold beet soup is better.Go Vilnius Instagram accountIt might not be Drake versus Kendrick, but the controversial claim made by “Go Vilnius,” the city’s tourism agency, started a rap battle over cold beet soup.
It made the claim on Instagram that the Lithuanian version of the soup tastes better than Latvia’s. Soon after, the two Baltic nations’ capitals — Vilnius and Riga — responded by throwing barbs at each other via Instagram reels.
Riga’s tourism agency response to Vilnius controversial statement.“Lithuania step back, it’s Latvia’s game,” the rap from Riga’s tourism agency goes. “This cold beet soup, we’re claiming the fame. Pink soup’s from Latvia, get it through your head.”
Two days later, Go Vilnius released a response. “In the soup, we sail, we swim, we sink. If you cut us open, we will bleed pink,” it rapped back.
Vilnius’s tourism agency response to Riga.Go Vilnius’ Ingstagram accountThe heated rap battle culminated in the June 2 event.
Gintare Kavaliunaite, public relations manager with Go Vilnius, said the difference in the way the pink soup is consumed in Lithuania versus Latvia is in the sides.
“Lithuanians serve it with a side of boiled potatoes, Latvians eat it with bread,” she said.
She added that she thinks that for Lithuanians, this is really a strange way to eat pink soup. “We are saying, ‘No, you never eat pink soup with bread; you only eat it with hot boiled potatoes.'”
Visitors slide down a water slide into a giant soup bowl during the Pink Soup Fest in Vilnius, Lithuania, June 1, 2024.Mindaugas Kulbis/APBut Madara Oga, Riga’s tourism agency senior project manager for the marketing division, explained where Latvia is coming from.
“Latvians eat rye bread with everything, so bread is our potatoes in this case,” Oga said.
She said there are a few key differences between the cold beet soups, as Latvians use marinated beets to make it and add mustard and horseradish, whereas Lithuanians use boiled beets.
Kavaliunaite from Go Vilnius said that the truth of the matter is that this soup is loved all over the region, including Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.
“We just enjoy the love and passion that this soup gets all over the region,” she explained.
Oga from Riga’s tourism agency, on the other hand, admitted that her team is envious of the “Pink Soup Festival,” but she added that Latvia’s soup is better.
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It’s rare for US military officers to resign in protest, but Army Major Harrison Mann decided he had to. Until yesterday, he worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, specializing in the Middle East.
Former Army Maj. Harrison Mann resigned from the Defense Intelligence Agency to protest what he calls Washington’s “unqualified” support for Israel that he says has “enabled” the killing of Palestinian civilians.Courtesy of Harrison MannMann served in the army for 13 years and is the first from the US military, the first from the intelligence community and the first Jewish US government official to resign over Israel’s war in Gaza.
“I think I, for better or worse, had a front row seat to everything that was happening in Gaza,” Mann said.
He submitted a request to resign last November, citing what he called “unqualified” US support for Israel that he says has “enabled” the killing of Palestinian civilians.
“The US support that me and my colleagues were definitely going to be a part of, was going to be unwavering, and essentially unlimited,” he said.
Harrison Mann was not free to discuss his decision until he left active duty on June 3. This is his first radio interview about his resignation.
Carolyn Beeler: Describe the moment when you decided that you could no longer, in good conscience, continue with your job.US Army Major Harrison Mann: If you recall back to mid-October, I think Oct. 17, there was a lot of attention around an explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza that killed 100 plus Palestinians. You know, there were conflicting accusations of who was responsible. And the intelligence community put a lot of effort into investigating this event. And in the end, they determined that it was not Israel, it was a Palestinian militant group. When we correctly assessed that it was not the Israelis, everybody kind of patted themselves on the back, and that was the last time that we ever looked into Israelis bombing hospitals. Even though, in less disputed instances, they bombed several Palestinian hospitals that same month. And so, I kind of lost hope that normally controversial or legally questionable acts like bombing hospitals were going to be something that we objected to, on the US side, and realized that the US government was never going to seriously put the brakes on the Israeli operation.You are Jewish. You describe in your resignation letter how you were raised in an environment that emphasized the importance of “never again” and the inadequacy of just following orders. Can you tell me more about how your upbringing influenced your decision to resign back in November?Yeah, I’m Ashkenazi Jewish, European descent Jew. Most of my family originated in Eastern Europe at some point. You know, the Jewish experience, as they understood it, was that Jews were this victimized people in Europe, this unwanted population that was really tormented by whoever had the power to do so. I mean, I think everybody with my kind of background in the United States grows up with that understanding, which is accurate. You know, that was not my experience growing up in the United States. I felt very confident and safe being Jewish. You know, years later, I find myself in this job and there is another unwanted, marginalized people who is also suffering greatly and the people who are imposing that suffering or contributing to it was me and my colleagues and the people I work with helping make this happen. And that was a very difficult realization to come to and to admit to myself. And it’s very hard to live with now, but that revelation is what drove a lot of my decision-making. And it’s, in part, what’s driving me to keep speaking out about this now.In your letter describing the reasons behind your resignation, you talk about shame and guilt. What were you doing in your job that you felt shameful or guilty about?I did not have a very important or glamorous job, but I was part of the machine that was directly involved in supporting the Israeli military. It’s not hard for me to tie some of my actions a couple of steps down the chain reaction to stuff that happened in Gaza.Former Army Maj. Harrison Mann resigned from the US military over the war in Gaza.Courtesy of Harrison MannReactions to resignationWhat happened to you after you resigned and described why you were leaving?I was very afraid about what the reaction was going to be, which is why it took me so long to be honest about it with the people that I worked with. But the response was overwhelmingly positive and supportive from the people that I worked with. The day after I sent my letter to about 100 people who I worked with at the agency, about 15 reached back out. The general energy was gratitude, and they were happy that somebody had finally said something and that they felt similarly and didn’t feel comfortable talking about it and thought that they were alone, too, until I messaged.Did you also get pushback from within the military or even in your private life?Very little. A very limited number of people, I think, responded with anything that was not in agreement. And someone told me, “I really don’t agree with the position that you took, but I respect that you put yourself out there and spoke out about this.” There were a lot of people waiting to hear somebody talk about this, and I’m sure there are many folks who disagree with me or disagree with the way that I went about expressing my concerns, but they did not generally feel strong enough to bring that up with me.Contentious topicsI wonder how much debate there is among US policymakers on the inside about American policy with regard to Israel and the war in Gaza. Is there a lot of contentious discussion about the role that the US is playing?I worked below the National Security Council policymaker level, but I will just say in the institutions that I’m a part of, which was the intelligence community, Department of Defense and the uniformed military, we consider ourselves professionals who do not discuss contentious topics, do not discuss politics, or, in this case, do not discuss highly politicized topics. So, I think despite clearly a large number of people feeling the same way that I did, I don’t think in any of these spaces, there’s really widespread open discussion or debate about the merits of our support for this war the same way that you see maybe in the State Department, where they have a lot more open discussion and dissent cables and means like that.Right. You’re referencing that the State Department has an internal dissent channel for people to share their honest opinions. Is there anything like that in the Pentagon?Not that I’m aware of.What do you hope to accomplish by resigning in this very public way?I ultimately want at least [a] plurality or large number of people inside the national security and military workforce who are contributing to the mass killing in Gaza and know that it’s wrong, to understand that they are not alone, and to try and make them feel empowered to try and do more than nothing about it. I felt alone, I felt powerless. I discovered a lot of other people feel that way, but I want folks out there who are in my position, first of all, to understand the hard truth that if you feel like what you’re doing is wrong, I don’t think anybody else is going to pop out and tell you it’s time to stop. Because I waited for that moment for a very long time and it did not happen. I hope I’m proven wrong, but I don’t expect it. But, with that, I want everyone to understand that it is not too late to behave in a way that you can look back on and be proud of.A widening conflictMajor Mann, Israeli leaders say that they are going after Hamas to make Israel more secure. The stated mission of Hamas is to eradicate the state of Israel. And, of course, there were the horrific attacks on Oct. 7 that kicked off this violence. What would you have Israel do differently to be waging this war in a way that you would feel more comfortable with?If you look at this conflict purely from the perspective of what is best for the Israeli people — which is not the government that I worked for, to be clear — you would see that they have made themselves incredibly less safe with their conduct of the war, which is now spread to, I think, 5 or 6 countries, many of them shooting projectiles or trying to shoot projectiles into Israel. I think if the Israeli military had visibly actually been targeting Hamas leadership, and if they had stated a realistic and achievable goal for their operation, it would be much easier to support, and it would be much better for Israel in terms of not drawing all of the international condemnation and isolation that they’ve achieved from this operation. If your goal is to defeat an organization whose ideology is hating Israel, bombing everyone’s grandma is probably not the best way to do it.Major Mann, I can hear that you’re speaking very carefully, choosing your words very carefully, and maybe that’s just the way you always speak, but I’m wondering if you are nervous about speaking out about this, or are very carefully choosing how you talk about this?I think I would really like to reach a broad group of people, especially people who consider themselves national security professionals. There’s a lot of conversation over whether or not this is a genocide, and that goes into legalistic arguments that I’m not really qualified to evaluate. I feel I am qualified to make an assessment that it is wrong to help kill and starve tens of thousands of children, which is something that I can say that I did and something that my friends and former colleagues are still being asked to do.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Click the blue player above to listen to the entire discussion.
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Igor Krolevets and Tatiana Krolevets, both dentists, own a clinic in Kharkiv, Ukraine, which they continue to maintain, despite the dangers of war.
The couple and their young son, Danilo, headed west shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.
They were separated at first because Tatiana Krolevets took Danilo to the Netherlands. Igor Krolevets couldn’t join them because it’s illegal for a Ukrainian man of conscription age to leave the country.
So, Igor Krolevets sought refuge in Lviv. After a year and a half apart, the family was reunited in Lviv.
“Kharkiv is my city, it’s always going to be my hometown,” Igor Krolevets said.
But back in Kharkiv, things are volatile. Russia is building up its forces near the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, according to Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s military.
In recent months, Russia has captured some villages in the Kharkiv region, and it’s also intensified its bombardment of Kharkiv city. More than 10,000 civilians have been evacuated from the Kharkiv region since Russia’s renewed assault there, according to Kharkiv’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov.
Many others left the region more than two years ago, soon after the war started.
Before then, the Krolevets said, they felt that there was no way they could get up and leave the city.
“It was not a really easy decision because the first day, it was feeling like the whole world fell down. And it was terrifying, and we didn’t know where to go,” Tatiana Krolovet said.
For her husband, being separated from his family, he said, felt like part of him “was being cut off.”
In the Netherlands, Tatiana Krolevets said, she was in a state of fogginess for several months.
“You just keep going and trying to keep yourself together.”
Things changed when she found a job as an orthodontist’s assistant.
“That was kind of a miracle because I was doing what I liked the most, and it helped because, otherwise, I don’t know what I would’ve done there,” she said.
Likewise, Igor Krolevets, who at first volunteered to help sort and deliver medical aid that came from abroad, got his first job as a dentist in Lviv after a few months.
Igor Krolevets worked for two years at three clinics until he decided to open his own clinic in Lviv last year.
“I wanted to make sure that when my wife returned, she would have a place to return to,” he said.
Until a few months ago, Igor Krolevets often made 13-hour journeys a few times a month to treat patients at their Kharkiv dental clinic.
Today, Igor Krolevets still travels to Kharkiv, despite feeling safer in Lviv — though only about once a month.
“Yes, it’s louder there, it’s certainly not as safe there as it is here in Lviv,” Igor Krolevets said, describing the air raid sirens that constantly play throughout the city.
Tatiana Krolevets said she worries for her husband’s safety when he goes to Kharkiv, but she understands what draws him back.
For them, their hearts will always be with Kharkiv.
“If you ask me what I would do if tomorrow the war ends, I would go back to Kharkiv, even though I know that it’s really close to the Russian border,” Tatiana Krolevets said.
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In imperial times, the Great Silk Road was a caravan route from China to the West, made famous by explorers like Marco Polo. In the 20th century, the same route was traversed by Soviet-era train tracks — and it still is.
National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek followed the Great Silk Road and its train tracks on foot through Uzbekistan in 2016. This was part of his 24,000-mile walk tracing the path of humans out of Africa and around the globe, a journey being documented in Out of Eden Walk.
It’s a trek that Salopek isstillwalking, and he caught up with The World’s host Carolyn Beeler to share more about his experiences in Uzbekistan in 2016.
Carolyn Beeler: Paul, let’s start with some background on the Great Silk Road. Remind us of who traveled on it and when and what they carried.Paul Salopek: Yeah, actually, there are many Silk Roads. There were land-based Silk Roads. There were [maritime] Silk Roads, using ships, but the one I walked was the central branch through Central Asia: Caravan roads were where camel caravans or horse or donkey caravans used to travel. Scientists think it started 2,000 years ago and carried everything from porcelain to gold to writing to music. It carried everything. It was a kind of globalization 1.0.As you were walking along part of that same route through Uzbekistan, I’m wondering if you saw or felt things that connected you to that historical trade route, if you felt echoes of Marco Polo at all.Very much so because my Uzbek walking partners and I were traveling the same way he did, which was on foot. It took six months to walk across more than 2,000 km, which is more than 1,200 miles. I traveled it on foot. Some of my walking partners rode donkeys, moving across this vast, very dry steppe, 20 miles a day at the most, walking from (water) well to well, sometimes walking along the railway line.Following but never converging: Letting the railway be the guide in western Uzbekistan.So, you were in Uzbekistan when the former Soviet-era leader was still in power, and I understand that the KGB [the old Soviet name that some Uzbeks applied to their country’s state security service] was tagging along for the ride. Can you tell me about that?Yeah. We really put those poor guys to work. They certainly earned their daily bread, trying to follow us on foot across deserts and whatnot. But it was the last years of a dictator named [Islam] Karimov, who’d been in power for over 20 years. And yeah, it was a bit surreal because we’re out in the middle of nowhere, yet they’re still tracking us. Sadly, some of the local Uzbek people — who are incredibly warm, very hospitable — were afraid to shelter us because they simply didn’t want to get on the radar of the KGB, as they still called them.The famous historical figure Genghis Khan also traveled along this route and aimed to conquer land along its length. What was his relationship with this land that is now Uzbekistan, where you were?You know, Genghis Khan is famous for, of course, from the Western perspective and the Asian perspective of the peoples who he conquered, he was kind of a scourge, right? He was a mass murderer. He destroyed cities. He killed thousands, millions. But he also wanted to make money once he conquered an area. So, he actually helped build the Silk Roads. He helped maintain them in order to tax them. So, we would run across these really amazing old ruins out in the middle of nowhere — they’re still standing — which were kind of moon bases. Imagine thousand-year-old moon bases. They were self-sufficient. They had high technology for their age. They had running water, clean water. Where, at the same time, the people of London, for example, were walking ankle-deep in the slops of the alleyways of London. So, the Mongol Empire fostered technology as long as it created revenue.Modern caravanserai: a tea shop in the Kyzyl KumJohn Stanmeyer/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkAlong your route, you visited a papermaking factory that used really old equipment. What was that experience like?So, this was in the city of Samarkand, where I visited this papermaking mill that was using water the way they did centuries ago. Samarkand is a city that was super rich at the height of the Islamic empires of Central Asia. It had an astronomy observatory, universities and a papermaking industry that was the most advanced in the world. It ranged everything from thick paper that would be used to wrap cargo to super ultra-light paper that you would wrap around a pigeon’s leg to deliver messages. It was like secret papermaking technology, [and] the secret eventually leaked along the Silk Road and spread to Europe. Until then, Europeans were using animal skins to write on. So, this was a huge innovation that came out of Central Asia during its golden age.That must have been very cool to see.This was the center of culture a thousand years ago. Global culture. When you hear about the Islamic Golden Age, it was Baghdad and these cities. They were logisticians, hydrologists, people studying optics. What is today seen as kind of a backwater, politically and economically, was at one time the center kind of a global culture. And it faded away.Totems of a golden age. Ruins of the medieval Beleuli caravanserai stand sentinel over a lonesome Uzbek steppe that once bustled with commerce. Its arched gate (background) toppled this year.You devoted one of your articles for National Geographic to a Great Silk Road traveler from the 19th century, Árminius Vámbéry. Tell me a little bit about him.Árminius Vámbéry is one of the great forgotten travelers of the 19th century, and he was a bit of a whacko, to be honest. He admitted that he was kind of a lunatic. He was from what is today Hungary. He was from a poor background. He was not privileged. He was largely self-taught, and he was brilliant. He left Hungary and traveled to what was then Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to teach himself the Ottoman languages. And there are many. He also taught himself Islam so that he could pass himself off as a traveling dervish, and he basically traveled across Central Asia along part of my route. I was following his ghostly footsteps, and he was writing notes about the environment and people, and cramming these notes into a big overcoat. So, imagine a big overcoat with lots of padding made up of manuscript notes.Arminius Vámbéry: portrait in the Bukhara museumWe’ve spoken about the people who passed through Uzbekistan over the centuries. What about the people who live there now? Can you tell us more about the culture of Uzbekistan today?Uzbekistan used to be largely pastoral, right? Pastoral nomads moving animals around semi-arid landscapes. But when the Soviet Empire moved in, the Russians moved in first, and then it turned into the Soviet Empire, and they urbanized these people. You know, centralized governments do not like nomads, as a rule, anywhere because people who move all the time cannot be controlled. It’s happened not just in Central Asia, but it’s happening today, even in northern Africa. People who move animals around generally feel great pressure to settle into towns, right? And that’s what’s happened with Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is really quite urbanized. Many people have concentrated in the cities, and the countryside is probably emptier today than 100 or 150 years ago. So, I largely walked through wilderness and then occasionally would come into a town where I’d resupply, and those people were just as urban as anybody. So yeah, it’s changed. Uzbekistan isn’t what it used to be.Parts of this interview have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonders of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
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GPS satellites do more than just tell us where we are. The world’s industrial control systems use their signals to tell precise times. That’s why when Russian and Ukrainian officials began jamming GPS satellite signals to throw missiles off course during the war, an unexpected thing happened — the lights went out. That is until some American researchers figured out a fix.
Dina Temple-Raston, host and managing editor of the CLICK HERE podcast from Recorded Future News, explains.
Click above to hear the full story.
An earlier version of this story appeared on the “CLICK HERE” podcast from Recorded Future News. Additional reporting by Sean Powers.
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Benjamin Caton, who is 27 years old, reckons that he has moved to a new home 14 times in three years in Amsterdam. His friend Michiel Voskamp said he has moved six times in the past year alone.
Both Dutch nationals, Caton and Voskamp have full-time jobs, but their experience reflects the highly dysfunctional housing market in the Netherlands, where rents have soared in recent years and tenants’ rights have been increasingly restricted.
A one-bedroom apartment in the city costs a minimum of $1,300 monthly, while the take-home pay for middle-income earners is a little more than $2,400 a month. But it’s not just about the price of rent. In larger Dutch cities like the capital, Amsterdam, the housing supply is so limited that many young people like Caton and Voskamp can spend months switching between staying with friends and family before finding a suitable place to live.
After struggling to find housing, Benjamin Caton and Michiel Voskamp formed a group called De Torteltuin, or “Dove Garden,” a sustainable housing collective.Orla Barry/The WorldA multitude of factorsHousing experts blame the crisis on a multitude of factors: a lack of new housing, an increase in the population, a surge in demand from the expat community and the policies of the former government. It’s not just students and young professionals who are struggling either.
Tamara Kuschel, who works with a homeless charity in Amsterdam, says she noticed a change in the type of people coming to their door eight or nine years ago.
”They would arrive looking well-dressed, a laptop under their arm, but then they would hang out in the office all day.” Prior to 2015, her organization, De Regenboog Groep, usually worked with people struggling with addiction or serious mental health issues. Now, she said, it’s also people with full-time jobs and children who say they have nowhere else to go.
“Many have just gone through a divorce or a breakup,” Kuschel said. “After the breakup, one of the partners gets the house and the other one can’t find anywhere to rent, and they end up on the streets or sleeping in their cars.”
“If you had told me three years ago that I would be sitting here asking for help, I would never have believed you.”
Tamara Kuschel, quoting clients at a homeless charity in Amsterdam
Kuschel’s group works with housing corporations and private landlords to source rooms at a reasonable price for those who suddenly find themselves with nowhere to live. Shame is a big problem, she added. “A lot of my clients say to me, ‘If you had told me three years ago that I would be sitting here asking for help, I would never have believed you. I had a nice house, two holidays a year, kids, a car, a good job, and now I’m here.’” But, Kuschel said, she tells them this could happen to anyone.
Housing prices have doubled on average in the Netherlands since 2013. In the early 2010s, the Dutch government, under former Prime Minister Mark Rutte, abolished its housing ministry.
Tamara Kuschel works with a homeless charity in Amsterdam. She says she’s noticed a change in the type of people coming to their door.Orla Barry/The WorldA pro-market approachThe government took a strong pro-market approach for several years, explained Richard Ronald, professor of Housing, Society and Space at the University of Amsterdam. It actively courted foreign companies and encouraged them to invest in the sector. The rent cap for many private sector accommodations was abolished, and suddenly, being a landlord became a much more attractive prospect. Deregulation made it easier for landlords to evict tenants after two years and hike up rents.
“In 2016/2017, about 1 in 5 people buying a house in Amsterdam was a landlord,” Ronald said.
Richard Ronald is a professor of Housing, Society and Space at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.Orla Barry/The WorldA new housing minister was appointed in 2022 as the housing crisis continued to worsen, who Ronald said, introduced measures that attempted to slow down the soaring prices. But today, an average house in the Netherlands still costs close to $500,000 — 10 times the average Dutch salary.
The waiting list for social housing is also growing. Currently, it can take seven or eight years to secure social housing, but in Amsterdam, the wait is closer to 20 years.
Bart Stuart is a visual artist and tenants’ rights campaigner.Orla Barry/The WorldVisual artist and tenants’ rights campaigner Bart Stuart said the sale of social housing stock to private investors over the last decade has also created divisions within communities. On Jasmijn Street, in the north of Amsterdam, a block of semi-detached houses that were once corporation-owned stand on one side of the narrow street. The homes were sold off to private owners and investors a few years ago and have since been renovated with freshly painted yellow window frames and new red roof tiles.
Across the little road, however, a row of houses still owned by the local government is clearly more dilapidated. Many have serious problems inside, with mold and other structural issues, Stuart said, but the city council repeatedly ignores the tenants’ complaints. It’s hard, he added, because they can just look across the road and see what their homes could be like.
The new coalition government led by Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party (PVV) has promised a major boost in housing construction and an increase in social housing provisions. But Bart Stuart is skeptical of the proposals. He said that Wilders has blamed much of the Dutch housing problem on migrants and refugees. The populist leader claimed that a surge in migrants arriving in the Netherlands in the last few years has led to a shortage in housing for Dutch citizens.
On Jasmijn Street, in the north of Amsterdam, a block of semi-detached houses that were sold off to private owners and investors have been renovated with fresh paint and new red roof tiles. Across the road, a row of houses still under the ownership of the local government are more dilapidated.Orla Barry/The WorldSarah de Lange, a political science professor and expert on populism at the University of Amsterdam, said reports of a huge increase in migrant numbers are not true. “If you compare the Netherlands to some other countries in Western Europe, such as Germany, it’s actually a relatively low number [per capita]. More importantly, contrary to what the government has claimed, the number of migrants and refugees arriving is relatively stable over time.”
Sarah de Lange is a political science professor and expert on populism at the University of Amsterdam.Orla Barry/The WorldThe new coalition has vowed to introduce the “strictest asylum policy ever” using a temporary crisis asylum law to further crack down on migrants and refugees entering the country. But de Lange said that’s unlikely to have much impact on housing supply.
Brainstorming new ideasIn 2020, Benjamin Caton — the 27-year-old who’s had to move numerous times — had a conversation with a group of friends about the impossible situation they found themselves in. They started brainstorming ideas about what their ideal home would look like, and someone posed the question: “What if we built it ourselves?”
They formed a group called De Torteltuin, or “Dove Garden,” and began working on a proposal to build their own sustainable housing collective. Fellow Torteltuin member Michiel Voskamp said they envisaged a block of 40 apartments, from studios to three bedrooms, but with a shared living area for every four or five households.
“The whole Torteltuin concept is really based on this idea that we have a lot of shared space,” he said. The building would be timber-clad with solar panels on the roof and a music studio in the basement.
They applied to city hall, and in 2021, their project was accepted. The group has since expanded to 30 members, and between crowdfunding, loans from the bank, city hall and two bond issues, they have raised close to $10 million. Total construction costs are expected to be around $13 million. Voskamp said they are hopeful the building, which will be located a 20-minute tram ride from the Amsterdam city center, will be completed in late 2025 or early 2026.
An architect’s drawing of the cooperative housing project in Amsterdam, called De Torteltuin.Courtesy of Natrufied ArchitectureThe collective will own the apartments and each of the tenants, like Caton and Voskamp, will rent their flats. A third of the building is to be set aside for social housing and available to vulnerable groups like asylum seekers, Caton said.
“The collective is really a protest against the way the housing market operates in this country,” he explained. “I still won’t own my own home, but this is a place I can imagine living in for the long term. Hopefully one day, my future children will grow up there too.”
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Mexico is almost certain to elect its first female president this weekend. Two women, Claudia Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Gálvez, are pulling over 90% of the vote — an undeniable milestone for the Latin American country.
The year 2019 marked a key turning point for Mexican women in politics. The country’s legislature approved a constitutional reform mandating gender balance in all elected and government-appointed positions.
Xóchitl Gálvez, left, and Claudia Sheinbaum, right, the frontrunners in Mexico’s presidential election. April 28, 2024.
Fernando Llano/AP Photo“This opened the door for a lot of female politicians that were looked after by political parties to fill multiple slots,” said Patricia Olamendy, a lawyer and member of Mexico’s feminist movement. “Let’s not forget that it was the feminists who pushed hard for this legislation,” she added.
While gender-equal representation is important, said Olamendy, “it is not enough to solve the existential issues faced by Mexican women.” Though they now enjoy growing success in politics and business, gender-based violence remains a major issue.
The walls outside a courthouse are filled with messages against femicide and in favor of freedom. Eduardo Verdugo/AP PhotoMexico has one of the highest rates of femicides in the world. At least 10 women and girls are killed every day. The number is likely to be higher, as many such crimes go unreported or misclassified as regular homicides.
The drivers of crimes against women are varied; including a deeply rooted sexist culture that has historically existed in Mexico, connections between criminal groups, state-sponsored violence and domestic abuse, as well as high levels of impunity. Only about 4% of violent crimes in Mexico are prosecuted, according to the independent research organization Mexico Evalúa.
Olamendy, who represents victims of femicides, said the most urgent tasks to be addressed by the next administration are the creation of a prosecutor’s office specialized in homicides of women, programs to support for survivors of gender violence and prevention campaigns.
When using Mexico City’s subway system, passenger Patricia Ponce de León prefers to ride dedicated cars for women only. That’s after a man recently touched himself inappropriately in front of her in one of the mixed-gender cars. Tibisay Zea/The WorldPolicies to help working mothers are also lacking, Olamendy added. Mexico is Latin America’s second-biggest economy, but many people rely on informal jobs to make a living. More than half of working-age women in Mexico participate in the informal sector, which is associated with low wages, lack of access to health coverage and greater vulnerability to workplace violence.
While a female president will be in a unique position to support feminist policies, many remain skeptical.
Becky Bios, a survivor of domestic violence and a feminist activist in Mexico City.
Tibisay Zea/The WorldBecky Bios, a survivor of domestic violence, is disappointed with the current administration’s handling of women’s issues and fears the new president will be more of the same.
“Behind these women, there are political parties run by men,” she said.
A victim of domestic violence, Bios was hospitalized in critical condition for several days after her former husband physically assaulted her for trying to end the relationship. Even though she made a formal complaint nine years ago, the case was never prosecuted. Her aggressor remains free.
Mexican presidential hopeful Claudia Sheinbaum greets supporters upon arriving at a campaign rally in Mexico City, May 16, 2024. General elections are scheduled for June 2. Marco Ugarte/AP PhotoBios had hoped that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador would deliver his promised progressive agenda, but he has instead dismissed feminist movements, often labeling them as political opponents.
“The government tried to erase us, and declared feminists enemies,” said Bios.
Bios fears a continuation of López Obrador’s policies now that his protégé, Claudia Sheinbaum, enjoys a two-digit lead over Gálvez as the frontrunner for president.
Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, right, and Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, greet supporters at a rally in Mexico City’s main square, July 1, 2019. Fernando Llano/AP PhotoSheinbaum was the mayor of Mexico City for five years, but her tenure left a lot to be desired for feminist groups, according to Lila Abed, director of the Mexican Institute at The Wilson Center. “There were high levels of impunity when dealing with femicide cases in Mexico City and clashes between feminist protestors and security forces, so she doesn’t have the best record.”
Sheinbaum has promised to tackle the root causes of violence and gender inequality without offering many details on how that will be achieved.
Representing a coalition of opposition parties, candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, an Indigenous politician and a successful tech entrepreneur, holds second place in the presidential race.
Opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez during her opening campaign rally in Irapuato, Mexico, March 1, 2024. Fernando Llano/AP PhotoIn a televised debate, Gálvez promised to be an ally of Mexican women and defend their interests. But the political parties she has embraced are all deeply discredited for being corrupt and ineffective at solving Mexico’s most pressing problems, including women’s safety.
Presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez greets supporters during a campaign rally in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City, May 23, 2024. AP Photo/Fernando LlanoBoth candidates agree on many gender-related topics, but neither has made women’s issues a fundamental pillar of their political careers.
“Both women came to power in the shadows of prominent and male politicians,” Abed said. “Their ability to really be able to govern as the country’s first female president is going to be mired by the same political parties and figures that prompted their political careers.”
Despite the skepticism, Abed said a female president is ultimately a positive outcome for Mexico, and it represents an opportunity to finally put women’s rights at the forefront of public policy.
“If a female president doesn’t do that, then who will?”
The feminist movement has a strong presence in Mexico and will closely watch the elections this Sunday, June 2nd.
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Thinking big has brought humanity ambitious, monumental feats of architecture — from the elegance of the Taj Mahal in India to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest building. But many others never made it out of the blueprint phase.
The new book, “Atlas of Never Built Architecture,” by Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell is a compendium of buildings, city plans, and other structures that were designed, but never actually got off the ground.
“Atlas of Never Built Architecture,” by Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin.Courtesy of Phaidon Press“You’re learning about talents that got lost by the wayside,” Lubell said of the minds behind the projects left unbuilt. “Maybe if a big project had happened, they would have been household names.”
During the research process for the book, Lubell said one city, in particular, stood out for ambitious and unique architectural plans.
Leapfrog City, John Johansen, New York, New York, United States, 1968. Picture credit: Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University / Reproduced with permission of Christen Johansen (page 66, top). Courtesy of Phaidon Press“Paris is a place that a lot of people think is sort of frozen in amber and a historical city, but it’s really not,” he explained. “And the ideas there have always really been incredibly forward-thinking, going back to the 16th century, really.”
Telefónica Tower, Alberto Campo Baeza, Madrid, Spain, 2000.Estudio de Arquitectura Campo Baeza (page 167, bottom). Courtesy of Phaidon PressFor example, Lubell and Goldin found plans for cities constructed under the Seine, the river cutting through the center of Paris. Another proposed building was a signal tower, which would have indicated weather, time, and news. “Sort of like a modern-day iPhone, but it’s the size of a skyscraper,” added Lubell.
Siloo O, NL Architects, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2011. NL Architects (page 136, bottom). Courtesy of Phaidon Press.One of the most unique proposals he came across was an egg-shaped building design proposed for the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Envisioned by architect André Bruyère, “L’Oeuf” featured a globular, yolk-like foyer.
Stone Towers, Zaha Hadid, Cairo, Egypt, 2009.Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects (page 270, bottom). Courtesy of Phaidon PressOther designs include Baghdad’s city plan re-envisioning and a soaring hotel perched on a peak overlooking Machu Picchu in Peru.
Skylight Sport Centre, Josep Miàs, Port d’Envalira, Andorra, 2015.Courtesy of MIAS Architects (page 165, top). Courtesy of Phaidon PressWhile Lubell said the research process for the book was a lot of fun — likening it to a treasure hunt — he said he hopes it offers future architects, city planners, and others inspiration for newer projects.
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An earlier version of this story appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune and KUER. Read the original story here. Funding was provided by the Great Salt Lake Collaborative.
In the former Kazakh port town of Aral, rusty cranes that once hoisted cargo from ships now rise above a dried-up bay overgrown with spindly shrubs. Several freshly painted fishing boats stand on the town’s boardwalk, monuments to a former way of life. In the distance, camels roam through a vast desert where fish once swam.
When Akshabak Batimova was growing up in the 1960s, her father left their village in western Kazakhstan each morning to fish in the Aral Sea — which was, until recently, the world’s fourth-largest lake.
Small ships now sit on the old waterfront of Aral, Kazakhstan, as monuments to a bygone era.Levi Bridges/The WorldAs a girl, Batimova overheard old-timers talking about how the lake was shrinking. But it was only after she left to study marine biology in Russia and returned home one summer after a year away that Batimova noticed the changes herself.
“I went to the place by the lake where we used to swim, but you couldn’t see water anywhere,” Batimova said.
Today, it is estimated that the Aral Sea in Central Asia has dried up to just a tenth of its former size.
Around 60 years ago, when the region was still part of the Soviet Union, authorities diverted the main rivers that feed the Aral Sea to irrigate one of the world’s largest cotton farming operations. And in just three decades, the lakeshore shrunk miles away from communities like the fishing village where Batimova grew up.
Old boats beside the now dried up port of Aral, Kazakhstan. The mighty Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth-largest lake, but its main tributaries were diverted to agriculture in the Soviet era and the lake has since shrunk miles away from the communities built on its former shore.Levi Bridges/The WorldBy the 1980s, the water fell so low that the Aral Sea’s salinity spiked, killing off its native fish. Fishermen and locals like Batimova, who worked as a researcher monitoring the Aral Sea’s fish, found themselves unemployed.
Dust storms kicked up sediment and pesticides from the dry lakebed, contaminating the air. As a result, locals in the region now experience a range of health issues, including high rates of cancer, kidney problems and infant mortality rates that are nearly twice the global average.
“When the dust started blowing up, people sat inside with the windows closed and everyone got sick,” said Batimova, who struggles with lung problems.
Fishing boats on the shores of the Aral Sea in western Kazakhstan.Levi Bridges/The WorldAt the height of the disaster, even people in communities far away in Turkmenistan were affected.
“In archival documents, people complain about the climate changing — less rainfall, hotter summers and more severe winters,” said Sarah Cameron, a history professor at the University of Maryland who’s writing a book about the lake.
Saving the lakeAfter the Soviet Union fell, however, Kazakhstan launched an ambitious plan to save the Aral Sea. At the heart of the project was a dam built in the early 2000s, spanning a narrow strait connecting the lake’s northern and southern arms.
The dam allowed a major tributary to fill a smaller part of the lake’s basin. It helped the water rise high enough to turn fresh again, and the fishing industry rebounded.
After the Soviet Union ended, Kazakhstan built an eight-mile dam that cost $86 million to separate the northern arm of the Aral Sea from the rest of the lake. The water level north of the dam quickly increased by more than 10 feet.Levi Bridges/The WorldThousands of miles away in the US, officials recently tried something similar when the Great Salt Lake in Utah dropped to dangerously low levels. They filled a breach in a railroad causeway that divided the lake so they could divide it into two sections to better manage salinity levels.
“If we can’t get more water to the lake, sacrificing part of the lake is one of the proposals on the table,” said Bonnie Baxter, a biology professor and director of the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster University in Salt Lake City.
The solution is not without challenges, though, in Kazakhstan or beyond. The Aral Sea has tributaries that flow through six different countries. Afghanistan recently launched construction of a canal that will eventually divert an estimated 20% of the water away from the Aral Sea’s largest tributary river.
Last year, Kazakhstan received so little water that even the section of the lake north of the dam started to turn salty again, and fish had trouble spawning.
When the Aral Sea dried up it turned from freshwater to a salt lake, killing off native fish species and decimating the local fishing industry.Levi Bridges/The WorldAn uncertain futureOn a recent afternoon, Kazakh fishermen complained about the poor catch as they loaded nets onto small fiberglass fishing boats.
“The lake is becoming much smaller and the financial situation of fishermen is getting worse every day,” said Aidarbek Altay Uly as he prepared to push his boat through the shallow waters to a distant point on the horizon where the lake finally became deep enough to fire up the motor.
But Kazakh officials and the locals who remain near the lake haven’t given up hope.
Fishermen have used sand to build a makeshift pier into the Aral Sea. Despite successes in revitalizing the lake, the water level has dropped again recently, making it more difficult for fishermen to bring their boats to deep water.Levi Bridges/The World“We might need to introduce ocean species of fish if we can’t stop the lake from salinating,” said Zaualkhan Ermakhanov, a local scientist in Aral who studies the lake’s fish.
Many Kazakhs believe adaptation is a better option than moving elsewhere.
They saved the Aral Sea before, and now they believe they can do it again.
Leia Larsen contributed to this report.
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Merced Plaza.
Michael Fox/ Under the ShadowIn June 1981, Oliva was three months pregnant and had only been married for four months when she witnessed the kidnapping of her husband by the country’s death squad.
“I was there when they took him away from me,” she said, adding, “I am a witness to the brutality. I am a survivor of that moment.”
Back then, Honduras — unlike its neighbors — wasn’t immersed in war, but its government was authoritarian and violent. The United States fueled that violence by using the country as the staging ground for military operations in the region. The US founded and trained the country’s notorious death squad, Battalion 3-16, which took action against students and radical leftist organizers.
Bertha Oliva posing in front of the remembrance room at the COFADEH.
Michael Fox/ Under the ShadowOliva, alongside other family members of the nearly 200 detained and disappeared, started the Committee of the Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras, or COFADEH, the year after her husband’s kidnapping.
Outside of Congress, on a square referred to as the ‘Plaza of the Disappeared’, COFADEH held monthly rallies seeking justice for the victims. Today, there’s a chance they may finally see reparations. The activists helped draft an unprecedented bill that Congress began debating in early April, which seeks justice for the victims of the state’s violations of human rights during the 1980s.
Bertha Oliva posing in front of the photos of some of the 200 detained and disappeared.
Michael Fox/ Under the ShadowLawmaker Oved Lopez Rodriguez, a member of the governing leftist Libre Party, has endorsed the bill.
“Many countries in Latin America have already advanced with this type of legislation. Many countries have already done justice. Not us,” Lopez Rodriguez said.
“We still have these conservative sectors that don’t want us to debate this issue here,” Lopez Rodriguez added.
All of the lawmakers who spoke on the day the bill was delivered, echoed Lopez Rodriguez’s sentiments. But the bill has opponents — both inside and outside of Congress who believe that the country should just move on and leave the past in the past.
A window of opportunity German Perez was just 4 years old when his father disappeared in 1982.
“We are just in front of Congress where they’re holding important meetings for a law to create the necessary policies to look for justice,” he said.
Photos of the detained and disappeared.
Michael Fox/ Under the Shadow“It’s late, but it’s important for those of us who have long been fighting for this,” Perez added.
Felix Molina is an independent Honduran journalist who today lives in Canada. He fled the country in 2016 after an attack on his life.
Molina said that there is a window of opportunity for the bill to pass under President Xiomara Castro’s government.
“This initiative to compensate the victims includes the principles of transitional justice, which is greatly absent in the Honduran scenario, which is why the historic wounds of the evils caused by the State remain open,” Molina said.
This is important. If approved, the law wouldn’t just compensate victims but would create public policies to remember the past and ensure it is never repeated. This is something COFADEH has been working on independently for years.
‘We want them back alive’At COFADEH headquarters, located in a two-story, colonial-style building near the Merced Plaza, the walls are covered with black-and-white pictures of many of the people who disappeared in Honduras in the 1980s. Among the victims are US citizens like Rev. James Carney.
Photo of Rev. James Carney hanged at the COFADEH.
Michael Fox/ Under the ShadowAt the top of the wall written in Spanish, it says: “You took them alive. We want them back alive.”
“This place is sacred,” Oliva said. “When I’m feeling tired or weak, I come here and I find strength. I communicate with them.”
Last December, COFADEH inaugurated a new museum north of Tegucigalpa. It’s called the Museum Against Forgetting. It’s in a former clandestine detention center where people were held, tortured, executed, and disappeared.
In a video made for the inauguration, Oliva sits along a white wall with tiny marks along it.
Oliva said that when they tested the walls, they found traces of blood stains.
“They’ve hidden the past from us,” she says in the video, adding, “And now, it’s like we are opening the windows to the past.”
And that is what her group hopes Congress will do, as well.
This story comes to The World from Michael Fox’s history podcast Under the Shadow, about U.S. involvement in Central America. It is co-produced in partnership with The Real News and NACLA. You can listen on Spotify, Spreaker, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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China’s military sent dozens of vessels and aircraft on Thursday to several strategic locations around Taiwan to simulate a full-scale encirclement of the island. In response, Taiwan dispatched ground, naval and air forces.
The exercise comes just days after Taiwan’s new president, who represents a more defensive approach to China, took office.
In this photo released by the Taiwan Coast Guard, a Taiwan Coast Guard member monitor Chinese navy vessel operating near the Pengjia Islet north of Taiwan on Thursday, May 23, 2024. Taiwan scrambled jets and put missile, naval and land units on alert Thursday over Chinese military exercises being conducted around the self-governing island democracy where a new president took office this week. Taiwan Coast Guard via APAt his inauguration on Monday, President William Lai Ching-te called on China to stop its political and military intimidation.
“China should jointly take the responsibility with Taiwan for maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Lai said.
But Lai’s ability to address China is hampered by a rocky relationship with opposition politicians at home.
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te delivers an acceptance speech during his inauguration ceremony in Taipei, Taiwan, Monday, May 20, 2024. Lai Ching-te was sworn in as Taiwan’s new president Monday, beginning a term in which he is expected to continue the self-governing island’s policy of de facto independence from China while seeking to bolster its defenses against Beijing.Chiang Ying-ying/APJust days before President Lai’s swearing-in, Taiwan’s legislature had descended into chaos: a full-on brawl that left at least one lawmaker hospitalized with a concussion.
Physical fights aren’t out of the ordinary in Taiwan’s legislature. What’s changed is that the president’s party finds itself in the legislative minority, and the main parties have traded blame for who was responsible for the fighting.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the faction allied with President Lai, says the opposition was trying to ram a package of bills through for a vote without time to discuss anything.
Lawmakers from Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, who had spent the day inside the Legislative Yuan opposing the controversial pieces of legislation, joined the protesters after midnight on Tuesday to thank them for their support.Ashish Valentine/The WorldThe main opposition, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), disagrees. The KMT favors closer ties with China and, although it doesn’t have a full majority, it has frequently proposed legislation alongside the Taiwan People’s Party, which ostensibly favors a middle ground between the two main parties. KMT legislator Chen Ching-hui, who was in the brawl, spoke at a press conference on Thursday.
“Over the past eight years, the DPP has taken up the majority of the seats in the Legislative Yuan and has become used to getting their way in parliamentary procedure. Now that the Taiwan people have voted them into the legislative minority, they continually insist on getting their way,” Chen said.
The bills themselves include an extensive range of proposals. One would give the legislature broad powers to summon politicians and ordinary people for questioning, and another would establish billions of dollars in infrastructure spending.
On Tuesday, as the legislature was getting ready to read the bills through again, about 30,000 people gathered outside to oppose the process. Most of them were supporters of the president.
Many had been there 10 years ago, during the student-led Sunflower Movement, which opposed a trade deal with China. Some even carried sunflowers to emphasize the links between these two protests.
Around 30,000 people gathered outside Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan on Tuesday to protest several controversial laws proposed by the two main opposition parties.Ashish Valentine/The WorldLai Chung-chiang helped co-organize this week’s rally. He is with the Economic Democracy Union, one of the many NGOs formed out of the Sunflower Movement.
“In a democracy, the power to question officials isn’t a bad thing,” he said. “But this bill would give the legislature the power to fine or jail people who give unsatisfactory answers.”
Further protests are planned for Friday and next week as the opposition parties seek to use their legislative majority to pass the bills despite the pushback.
Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Chengchi University in Taipei, sees the past week as a sign of gridlock in the years ahead.
Whether or not there’s common ground, there’s no incentive for the two opposition parties to want to work with the DPP right now,” Nachman said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese military drills have tested President Lai’s capacity to work alongside his political opponents.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te listens to the briefing of multiple Stinger missile launcher demonstrations during his visit to inspect the Taiwanese military in Taoyuan, Northern Taiwan, Thursday, May 23, 2024. Chiang Ying-ying/APChinese ships and aircraft encircled Taiwan and several outlying islands and conducted mock strikes, continuing a pattern that’s steadily gotten more aggressive in recent years.
China’s military says they are “strong punishment” for Taiwan’s “separatist acts.”
Regardless of the gridlock, Nachman sees President Lai’s path as clear.
“It seems like [President] Lai is going to have to focus on areas he can make a difference in, which thankfully is things like foreign policy,” Nachman said.
For their part, the main opposition KMT spokesperson, Alexander Huang, said in a press conference today that regardless of their differences with the president, “We stand by our troops. We wholeheartedly support the strong defense of Taiwan.”
Despite this seeming agreement, President Lai will not have a honeymoon as tensions rise within Taiwan and across the strait.
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Marathons around the world are filling up fast, and many are setting new records for participation. Runners and race directors across the globe share about why they choose to lace up.
At the beginning of 2023, Justin Ly had his mind made up about marathons.
“When I thought of the marathon, I just thought it was a bit stupid,” he said. “And really didn’t understand why would anyone want to put themselves through the pain?”
Still, Ly, who lives in Sydney, wanted to test his discipline and improve his physical fitness. So, he decided to run a few miles each day.
Within a few months, Ly was eating his words about running — and marathons. He enjoyed the process, he said, and he invested in better gear.
Last fall, he pushed himself to run the Sydney Marathon. He said it was “absolutely brutal,” and he hit the dreaded “wall,” when you feel like you can hardly walk, let alone run. Eventually, though, he crossed the finish line.
Ly is just one of many people around the world who have been getting into long-distance running in recent years. On Strava — a social media-like app to track exercise — there was a 20% increase in marathon runners in 2023 over the previous year.
Despite the suffering, Ly said, he was hooked. He wanted to run Australia’s Gold Coast Marathon this year or the Melbourne Marathon, but they both sold out.
Ly said he managed to get a spot in the Sydney Marathon again before it reached capacity at 24,000 runners, the largest field for any marathon ever held in Australia.
The fact that marathons are trending is perhaps most visible at the London Marathon, where more than 840,000 people entered the lottery to run the race next year.
Hugh Brasher, the London race director, said he and his team were astounded by the 48% increase in UK applicants and a 43% increase in international applicants.
“I would say it was beyond my wildest dreams,” Brasher said.
Brasher said that next year’s race is expected to break the world record for most marathon finishers ever. And he thinks there’s more than one reason for the sudden rise.
“I think it’s more where society is. You know, whether it’s through war, whether it’s through social media, I think that society has become more polarized,” he said.
Marathons, he said, are unifying.
“You know you’re going to help someone else, you know someone else is going to help you,” he said, adding, “You don’t know who that person is going to be. But it just brings an incredible feeling of humanity coming together.”
Another reason people sign up for marathons is to meet new people in their communities.
Kevin Masters, a psychology professor at the University of Colorado Denver, who researches why people run marathons, said he believes that it has to do with the epidemic of loneliness in the country coming out of the pandemic.
“We see a type of — just kind of a sense of ‘Where am I in this big picture?’” Masters said.
Rachel Zimner, who leads Nice Jewish Runners in Toronto, said community is a central force at their weekly meetups.
“It’s almost like going to church,” she said. “You’re having that kind of spiritual connection with other people.”
Nice Jewish Runners started in New York last fall. Since then, the club has created chapters in 19 cities worldwide. In Toronto, Zimner said that some people walk or cut the course short before grabbing coffee and chatting.
For this group — and many amateur clubs — the pace is not the point.
“You know, you’re looking for an environment that might be safe for you to feel any kind of feelings that you might be feeling about what’s going on in your own personal life and in the world,” she said.
Nice Jewish Runners is part of a global rise in running clubs targeting specific groups of people, like the Muslim Running Club in New York and the Non-Binary Running Club in San Francisco.
Others are centered around a neighborhood or city, like Midnight Runners. The club started in London in 2015 and has since expanded to four continents.
“We’re open to all races, all religions, all sexual orientations. And that’s the main focus of what we do,” said Juan Felipe Perdomo Carvajal, who helps lead Midnight Runners from Bogotá, Colombia.
He believes the running boom is tied to society’s increased focus on self-care.
“I’d say that’s a big motivator. We all want to be our best versions,” Perdomo Carvajal said.
It’s not just the roads and sidewalks that are filling up — trail running is also on the rise. According to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association’s annual report, trail running has seen more than a 20% increase since 2020.
In Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, runner Ahmed Ouikhalfen said the local terrain makes it easy for first-timers.
“The conditions here help a lot,” he said. “And more people started, like, doing it. Just for fun.
In 2022, a new trail running festival called Atlas Marathon even popped up in Aït Bouguemez, an area east of Marrakesh. Organizers are now working to get the sport into the Olympics.
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Eduardo Ojeda crossed the US border with his family in December after a five-week journey from Venezuela to a tall border gate in El Paso.
Ojeda, his partner, their two teenagers, and their 2-year-old son made a dangerous trek across the Darien jungle.
They took boat rides between remote villages, passed eight border crossings and spent numerous nights sleeping in rainy campsites and crowded shelters.
Eduardo Ojeda poses for a photo after reaching the border between Colombia and Panama in November. Ojeda, 34, captured some of it with his cellphone, posting minute-long videos on TikTok.
Migrants increasingly use sites like Facebook, TikTok and Instagram to record their journeys across dangerous routes. Some have managed to monetize their content, while others say they just want to help those who’ll come behind.
Ojeda said he wanted to show his viewers how tough the journey north can be while providing some advice to thousands of migrants who are now on their way to the United States.
“I saw many people who were getting ripped off by smugglers and losing all their money early in the trip,” Ojeda said in a phone interview from a shelter in New York.
“So, I wanted to show people that along most of the road, you do not need to buy services from smugglers, and you can do this journey independently,” he added.
More than 500,000 migrants and refugees traveled from South America to the United States last year.
A group of migrants leaves the Colombian village of Capurgana and enters the Darien jungle on April 30, 2023.Manuel RuedaVenezuelans, Ecuadorians, Haitians and Chinese citizens are leading the long list of nationalities that go through this route.
Ojeda’s videos have an educational feel to them. The Venezuelan migrant points out the locations of shelters in different towns and shows his viewers where to get money transfers.
Ojeda also informs on transportation costs along different segments of the route.
In the comments below Ojeda’s TikTok videos, people about to make the journey interact with those who have recently made it to the US.
Followers usually ask about prices or the safest places to cross the US border.
“It wasn’t easy to get here,” said Ojeda, who now works at a parking lot in New York City.
“But it’s not impossible,” he added.
Migrants camp outside the Panamanian village of Bajo Chiquito on September 16, after crossing the Darien jungle.Manuel RuedaOjeda did not make any money from his videos. Others have managed to monetize the difficult and often dangerous journey to the US.
Manuel Monterrosa filmed himself crossing the Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama two years ago when he made the journey to the United States.
Now, he has more than 90,000 followers on YouTube.
Last year, Monterrosa returned to South America to make more videos about the immigration routes. He gave up on living in the United States to pursue content creation.
“This is not about promoting illegal immigration,” Monterrosa said in a video call from El Salvador, where he’s working on new content. “I just wanted to show people the reality of these places so that they can make good choices.”
Social media accounts can also mislead migrants.
In Colombia’s Darien region, smugglers are using Facebook groups to sell travel packages that cost hundreds of dollars.
On April 30, 2023, a group of migrants left the Colombian village of Capurgana and entered the Darien jungle. Last year, more than half a million migrants took this route as they traveled from South America to the United States.Manuel RuedaThe smugglers post interviews with people who claim they have made the route and make it sound like it’s an easy trip, said Bram Ebus, a researcher at the International Crisis Group.
“Often, the route through the Darien is promoted as this jungle adventure next to beautiful Caribbean beaches, a once-in-a-lifetime experience where you will make new friends,” Ebus said.
“But that is far from reality.”
Ebus said that social media companies like Facebook should do a better job at blocking accounts that are misleading migrants.
Grave human rights abuses occur in the Darien, while smugglers downplay the risks of the journey to get as many customers as they can.
These often include robberies and sexual assault.
In February, Doctors Without Borders reported that in the first two months of this year, it had treated more than 220 victims of sexual assault at its health posts on the northern edge of the Darien Gap.
Migrants line up to take buses towards Costa Rica, at the Lajas Blancas camp in Panama, on September 13. Manuel RuedaThe medical group said it was “outraged with the level of impunity” that criminal groups in the region get away with.
Ojeda said that he only published his TikTok series after arriving in the United States. He didn’t want to upset human traffickers who profit from taking people across borders.
“I didn’t want to put my family at risk because the smugglers are also connected to cartels,” he said.
Ojeda said he hopes that refugees and migrants who are heading to the US will find reliable information on their journey.
He said many of them have been left with few other choices.
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It may be hundreds of miles away from any coastline, but the Bavarian capital of Munich is home to one of the world’s most iconic — albeit dangerous — waves. The Eisbach wave, which sits on the edge of the Eisbach river, has been attracting wetsuit-wearing surfers since the 1970s, including big names like famed American competitive surfer Kelly Slater.
The Eisbach can be intimidating, not just because of the artificial wave itself — which runs in shallow water and can reach up to 4 feet high — but because of everything else surrounding it.
Like the constant audience of dozens of tourists ogling the surfers from a stone bridge just above.
Then, there’s the surfers themselves: cool, confident, carefree and mostly men — though, with some exceptions.
20-year-old Caroline Leeger is ready to surf on the Eisbach wave.
Credits: Rebecca Rosman/The World“I always felt like, ‘Wow those surfers, they’re so cool,’” said 20-year-old Caroline Leeger.
She spent a long time watching from the sidelines. Then, three years ago she decided to get her own surfboard and dip her toes in the river.
“I felt like, ‘OK, now is your time. You have to start doing it,’” she said.
Here’s how it all works.
Surfers — each one donning a wetsuit and short board — line up on the banks of the river for their shot at the wave.
Once it’s their turn — everyone goes one at a time at the Eisbach — all eyes are on them, at least for as long as they can keep themselves upright.
Lasse Bauer, 32, said he learned to surf over a decade ago while living abroad in New Zealand. When he returned to his native Munich, an idea sparked as he started coming by the Eisbach river.
32-year-old Lasse Bauer works for Dreamwave, a Munich-based company that builds river waves.
Credits: Rebecca Rosman/The World“I went with one of my best friends, and we said, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to build river waves?’”
Bauer ended up changing his college major to hydraulic engineering. Today, he works for Dream Wave International, a company that has built two artificial waves in Germany, one in Nuremberg and another in Hanover.
“It’s just a lot of fun,” said Bauer, who has been coming to the Eisbach at least once a week for the past decade.
Lasse Bauer surfing on the Eisbach River.
Credits: Rebecca Rosman/The WorldThe Eisbach river wave dates back to the early 1970s, when a small group of surfers, fed up with the fact that the nearest coastline was over 300 miles away, took matters into their own hands.
Overnight, a wave appeared in the river after the city placed several concrete blocks under the stone bridge to block the strong current.
Intriguingly, the surfers attached a rope to the bridge and began surfing it. Soon, they realized they didn’t even need the ropes.
But for a long time, Munich officials thought the wave was too dangerous to surf, so this makeshift sport was illegal.
Rufus Amend waiting to surf on the Eisbach River.
Credits: Rebecca Rosman/The World“If we heard the sirens of the police, we had to run away like criminals. But we weren’t criminals, I promise,” said Rufus Amend, another Eisbach surfer.
The city of Munich overturned the ban in 2010.
Today, hundreds of spectators watch him surf, but Amend said he doesn’t even notice them anymore. In fact, he said he’s not thinking about anything once he’s in the water.
“If you’re in the water and surfing, you don’t think about work or school or whatever,” he said.
The river may not provide that same open escape as the ocean, but once he’s on the wave, Amend said, all thoughts just stop — which is the best part of all.
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In the 1950s, when Emelia Lozano Gonzalez was 7 years old, her baby sister Cecilia got sick with double pneumonia. Antibiotics were hard to come by back then, and her 22-month-old sister died.
“After, I remember going into the fields with friends,” she said, “collecting flowers for my sister’s funeral. That’s my memory.”
Gonzalez has carried around this memory only in her head for the last 65 years — until now. Today, she can open her wallet and pull out what looks like a black-and-white photo of a little girl in a field of flowers, with another kid in the background.
“Look what they made me,” she said. “I got so emotional when I first saw it because it looks so much like me.”
But it isn’t her, exactly.
Gonzalez provided this information to a Spanish company called Domestic Data Streamers, which then uses artificial intelligence to create a so-called “synthetic memory.”
Upon closer reflection, the image is an imperfect composite of the memory — it shows some distortion in the faces, blurry limbs and an ever-so-slightly stitched-together landscape.
But it doesn’t have to be perfect because memories themselves are vague and change constantly over time, said Domestic Data Streamers’ Marina Olivares.
“Memory is [a] construction in a way,” Olivares said, “because, sometimes, we have a memory of something that our parents have explained that happened to us, and then, we generate an image of that, but we didn’t really recall it before.”
In keeping with the fuzzy nature of remembrance, synthetic memories have a dreamy quality built into them.
One of the company’s designers, Pau Garcia Sanchez, said they’re after an emotional response from people. Too much detail or realism, he said, and our intellects start to nitpick over small details, like the color of a childhood couch.
The less-than-real imaging is also a safeguard.
“The potential misuse of this technology [is] to create fake news and fake memories, so this is something that we should acknowledge, as any technology can be used and can be put for bad practices,” he said.
Google which partly funds Domestic Data Streamers, has been sued by consumers for alleged misuse of users’ personal data. But controversy aside, the synthetic memories, Sanchez said, are being offered for free to vulnerable populations, such as people living with dementia. The synthetic memories were used to help people remember real events.
“You feel afraid when you feel that you are losing your memory. Finding something that feels familiar is such a relief, so connecting to a part of your past where you’re safe; it’s giving people a lot of relief,” Sanchez said.
The process is free and participants must be willing to share a lot of information upfront during the first part of the process — the interview.
As the participant shares a memory, an assistant types keywords into a laptop. They never take a photo of the participant or ask for one. Everything is based on the memory described by the participant — such as arriving each summer at a family lake house.
After about 20 minutes, the participant is left holding a Polaroid-style image, which reflects the shared memory. It’s not an exact replica, but it’s enough to trigger an emotional response.
People usually smile when they see their synthetic memory, even when it’s a sad one, like picking flowers for a sister’s funeral, Domestic Data Streamers said.
“It’s a fond memory, but also a tough one … one that’s just so hard to bear,” said Gonzales, the participant who lost her baby sister. “But now, somehow, having the synthetic memory is helping me to accept it as part of my life.”
After all these years, a synthetic rendering of a memory based on 65 years of remembering, and reremembering, has brought Gonzalez some peace. She said she’ll stick the photo to her fridge with a magnet.
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On Monday, the International Criminal Court requested arrest warrants for the top leadership of Hamas, along with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister.
In a video statement, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said that the law must be applied equally.
“Now, more than ever, we must collectively demonstrate that international humanitarian law, the foundational baseline for human conduct during conflict, applies to all individuals and applies equally across the situations addressed by my office and by the court,” Khan said.
Khan opened his statement by talking about Hamas and named three of the Palestinian militant group’s senior leaders, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Dief, and Ismail Haniya.
“My office submits that there are reasonable grounds to believe that these three Hamas leaders are criminally responsible for the killing of Israeli civilians in attacks perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups on Oct. 7, 2023,” he said.
He went on to say the three leaders “bear criminal responsibility” for international crimes including murder, hostage-taking, torture, rape and other acts of sexual violence. Khan thanked survivors of the Oct. 7 attack and family members of those killed who shared their accounts with his office. He also called for the immediate release of all hostages still being held in Gaza.
Then, Khan turned his attention toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. He said their alleged crimes include “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering, serious injury to body or health or cruel treatment, willful killing or murder, and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.”
Khan said the famine taking place in some parts of Gaza is the result of an “entirely manmade disaster” and named Netanyahu and Gallant as the two most responsible.
Condemnation of Khan’s announcement on Monday came quickly from Hamas, Israel and Washington.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden denounced the decision as “outrageous.” He said, “There is no equivalence … between Israel and Hamas.”
Hamas issued a statement calling on the ICC to cancel the decision.
Netanyahu categorically rejected the ICC prosecutor’s decision, calling it “a complete distortion of reality.” The Israeli prime minister repeated his vow to win the war against Hamas.
Khan’s request would still have to be approved by a panel of judges, and the ICC has no way of enforcing arrest warrants.
David Makovsky, with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said most Israelis see Khan’s announcement as outrageous.
“Here’s a country that is a Western democracy with a fiercely independent judiciary that is somehow being equated to Hamas. You could imagine that people are stunned that such a prosecutor could say what he said,” said Makovsky, who is visiting Israel this week.
Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the ICC’s request for arrest warrants is a good first step but that Khan also left out two key allegations against Israel. “One is genocide,” Buttu said. And torture of Palestinian detainees is another omission, she added.
At the International Court of Justice, South Africa is currently bringing charges of genocide against Israel. Buttu said, “There’s plenty of evidence to establish this, and [Khan] has ignored it.”
Israeli lawyers presented their case at the ICJ on May 10 and called the allegations of genocide “grossly distorted.”
Regarding the Palestinian detainees, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in March reported that 27 Palestinians had died in Israeli custody since Oct. 7, 2023.
“Israelis are not allowing people to monitor what is happening and there are lots of accounts of the torture that’s being meted out. So, the fact that he omitted both of those, both the genocide and the torture, speaks volumes,” Buttu said.
Israeli officials say they detain Palestinians suspected of militant activities and that they uphold international law when doing so.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin last year. If the ICC does end up issuing warrants for Israeli officials, it would be the first time the court has done so for leaders of a democratic country.
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The Old State House in downtown Boston is a monument to revolution, hidden in plain sight.
Commuters, tourists and street vendors hustle past the 18th-century former Massachusetts capitol, the site of the Boston Massacre and Boston’s first reading of the Declaration of Independence.
Sitting just across the street from it on a recent Tuesday afternoon, Charlot Lucien, founder of the Haitian Artists Assembly of Massachusetts, had the author of a different revolution on his mind.
Toussaint L’Ouverture was one of the major leaders of the Haitian Revolution. Lucien compares him to two American greats: Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
“Of course, I could have named a few abolitionists as well, but the weight of the historical mission that Lincoln had to take on his shoulders, to me, is comparable to what Toussaint L’Ouverture had to deal with,” he said.
Charlot Lucien sits across the street from the Old State House.Esteban Bustillos/GBH NewsThe Toussaint L’Ouverture Cultural Center of Massachusetts, set to celebrate its groundbreaking near TD Garden on May 20, will act as a gathering place and resource for local Haitians. And organizers hope it will also help the legacy of one of history’s great leaders live on.
L’Ouverture is believed to have been born enslaved in the former French colony of Saint-Domingue, which would become Haiti upon its independence. He was a military leader and statesman who made key contributions to abolition. The constitution of 1801, which was written under L’Ouverture’s guidance, banned slavery.
His leadership helped the former French colony chart a path to independence and paved the way for the world’s only successful revolt by enslaved people.
Régine Michelle Jean-Charles, the director of Africana Studies at Northeastern University, compares L’Ouverture to another revered American.
“Just thinking about the impact and the reverence and the extent to which he is seen as really a freedom fighter, I think that that is very appropriate to compare him to Harriet Tubman.”
Régine Michelle Jean-Charles, director of Africana Studies at Northeastern University
“Just thinking about the impact and the reverence and the extent to which he is seen as really a freedom fighter, I think that that is very appropriate to compare him to Harriet Tubman,” she said.
Like many of history’s most famous figures, L’Ouverture has been made into a larger-than-life figure. But Jean-Charles stresses that L’Ouverture didn’t view himself as solely responsible for freeing Haiti.
“We’re very much about the collective, the collaborative, the understanding that ‘L’Union fait la Force,’ as it says on the Haitian flag, which is, ‘There’s strength in unity,’” she said. “So, his recognition of the collective, I think, is something that we can also learn from and, to me, also links him to contemporary abolition struggles.”
L’Ouverture’s legacy across BostonWhen the Toussaint L’Ouverture Cultural Center, or TLCC opens, it will serve as a hub for the local Haitian community and beyond.
The facility, which has been a long time in the making, will act as a conference center, hosting meetings, lectures and workshops. Its library will house Haitian literature, among other works. It will also serve as a space for hosting functions ranging from festivals to weddings.
But L’Ouverture’s modern legacy in Boston isn’t limited to the new cultural center.
In 2017, Boston Public Schools opened The Toussaint L’Ouverture Academy, the first two-way immersion Haitian Creole dual-language preschool program in the country. He even got a shout-out in the 2022 film “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” as T’Challa’s son’s namesake.
Nancy Accime, a member of the TLCC’s executive committee,believes the center will directly contribute to L’Ouverture’s mission.
“This provides the opportunity to really highlight … what he stood for. The ideals,” Accime said. “Which I think is in alignment with most people in terms of making sure that you have liberty, making sure that you have these freedoms.”
Although L’Overture was one of the architects of the Caribbean nation, he never actually saw a free Haiti. The French captured him in 1802, and he died the following year. Haiti would officially declare independence in 1804.
Residents look at a mural depicting the independence heroes ahead of the Flag Day celebrations in Arcahaie, Haiti, May 14, 2018.Dieu Nalio Chery/APBack outside the Old State House, about a 20-minute walk from where the Toussaint L’Ouverture Cultural Center is breaking ground, Charlot Lucien reflected on how Boston has been a historic hub of support for Haiti. President John Adams, who was from Massachusetts, actually sent US foreign aid to L’Ouverture.
“So, it makes sense to explore those historical connections and make sure that we move forward a certain agenda that will cement who we are and that will also contribute to booster Boston’s reputation as a bastion of freedom and abolition,” he said.
An earlier version of this story was published at GBH News.
The post Who was Toussaint L’Ouverture, the namesake behind Boston’s new Haitian cultural center? appeared first on The World from PRX.
On Friday, Tigran Gambaryan — the head of financial crime compliance for Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange — found himself in the last place he’d ever expected to be: a Nigerian courtroom on trial for something his company might have done.
A former investigator with the IRS, he’d spent more than a decade following illicit cryptocurrency transactions back to the people who made them. Rolling up, among others, the alleged founder of AlphaBay, Alexandre Cazes, and Silk Road’s “Dread Pirate Roberts,” Ross Ulbricht.
But now, after a spectacularly bad turn of events, Gambaryan is at the center of a battle between his company and regulators of the Nigerian government. Nigerian regulators have charged him personally for a roster of alleged crimes that they claim Binance has committed, and it is unclear how a middle manager, a former cop, has ended up shouldering the blame. Gambaryan has pleaded not guilty. He says he’s done nothing wrong.
Even so, Nigerian authorities have detained Gambaryan since late February. “Click Here”spoke to more than a dozen current and former IRS and FBI agents who either knew Gambaryan well or had worked with him, and they all voiced the same concern: Why isn’t the US government doing more for one of its own?
“You’re leaving a fellow law enforcement officer, even though he’s out of the game, kind of hanging,” said Matt Price, a former IRS agent who worked with Gambaryan on cases and at Binance. “We can’t believe they’re not doing anything.” And while Gambaryan’s plight appears to have been elevated inside the Biden administration in recent days, agents are asking, “What took them so long?”
“I have done nothing wrong,” Gambaryan said in a cell phone video he filmed back in March. “I’ve been a cop my whole life. I’m asking the United States government to assist me … I need your help, guys. I don’t know if I’ll get out of this without your help. Please help.”
Charges after an escapeGambaryan’s video summed in 40 seconds what is otherwise a very complicated series of unfortunate events: “Hello my name is Tigran Gambaryan and I’m the head of financial crime compliance at Binance,” it began. “I have been detained by the Nigerian government for a month and I don’t know what is going to happen to me after today.”
As Gambaryan recorded the message, it was clear he was worried guards would stop him or grab his phone because just a few hours earlier he had awoken from a nap to learn that the Binance colleague who had originally been detained with him, Nadeem Anjarwalla, had somehow escaped. “I had nothing to do with it, I was not involved in any of it,” he said in the video.
Anjarwalla was Binance’s regional manager in charge of Africa and the afternoon of that video, according to three people familiar with what happened, Gambaryan found a Post-it note from Anjarwalla that essentially said he was sorry, but he was making a break for it. Anjarwalla had put pillows under the covers of his bed so guards would think he was still there.
While it is unclear exactly how he got out of the government compound, it appears he asked guards if he could go to a nearby mosque to say prayers for Ramadan, and while he was at the mosque, he gave them the slip.
As a result, it was left to Gamabaryan to break it to his captors that his colleague was gone. The Nigerian government now claims that it is in negotiations with Kenya to have Anjarwalla extradited.
Their anger and embarrassment at having lost Binance’s country manager seems to have fallen mostly at the feet of Gambaryan. Within days of the escape, the Nigerian authorities charged him, Anjarwalla and Binance itself with tax evasion and money laundering.
The fact that Gambaryan found himself on the receiving end of all of this is particularly ironic because his job at Binance was to act as a liaison between law enforcement and the company and he traveled to Nigeria to teach local investigators how to track shady transactions back to the criminals behind them.
An unexpected announcement The timing of the Nigerian government’s decision to detain Gambaryan and Anjarwalla in February came just months after the Justice Department reached a plea agreement with Binance’s founder and former CEO, Changpeng Zhao. Zhao had agreed to plead guilty to a roster of charges including tax evasion and money laundering related to lax oversight at the Binance exchange.
Zhao, known as CZ, agreed to step down as CEO, surrender his passport, and pay a multibillion-dollar fine. The announcement, rumored for months, rocked the crypto world and, some observers say, may have planted an idea into the minds of some Nigerian officials.
“CZ was sort of a cult figure within the industry,” said Jacob Silverman, who wrote a book with Ben McKenzie on the crypto industry entitled “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.”
He said that people had looked up to CZ because he had managed to build the biggest crypto exchange in the world at breakneck speed, though “he had had a reputation for, you know, to use the old [Mark] Zuckerberg phase, ‘move fast and break things.’”
Silverman said there was always a whiff of something being not-quite-on-the-up-and-up about Zhao. Among other things, he would never travel to the US. He lived in the United Arab Emirates, but he was from Canada.
“People kept wondering, what’s this guy up to in Dubai?” Silverman said, adding that kind of mystery was rife in the early days of the industry.
“There was a sense that the existing rules — especially the existing rules around banking and how money moves — shouldn’t really apply. And that’s certainly what animated a lot of the overseas growth of crypto, especially in East Asia and in Africa. There was this notion that ‘we should be able to move money wherever we want to without really much heed for how we’re doing it or how much we’re sending or to whom.’”
In its case against Zhao, the Justice Department said the former CEO prioritized Binance’s growth, market share, and profits over US law. He admitted to facilitating billions of dollars in cryptocurrency transactions without adhering to some of the most fundamental rules of banking. Binance didn’t implement anti-money laundering protocols or adhere to “know your customer” procedures, which require that a bank or financial institution should know basic information about their customers.
“For several years after Binance first opened in 2017, you could register a Binance account with just an email address and a password,” Silverman said. “And CZ knew that they were flagrantly in violation of Know Your Customer and anti-money laundering laws and regulations.” The Justice Department said as much when it charged Zhao, using internal texts and emails as proof that the attitude was “do it now, and ask for forgiveness later.”
A very familiar looking set of chargesIn early January, just weeks after the Zhao plea agreement was made public, Gambaryan was part of a group of Binance employees who traveled to Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to meet with regulators from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
“It was more of a training event with the EFCC, this is something that Tigran did quite a bit,” Price said. “He did these trips a lot and I had done it quite a bit. You come in and talk to law enforcement people, it’s usually a soft approach and you’re trying to build relationships and trying to train them how to do crypto investigations.”
So in other words, Gambaryan was there to teach the Nigerian regulators how to track cryptocurrency transactions back to the bad guys. But the January trip, the first of two Gambaryan would make in the first part of 2024, took a bad turn. Nigerian officials said they were concerned that Binance was evading taxes and violating anti-money laundering rules.
A Nigerian official allegedly took someone from the Binance team aside during the early January trip. The official said that regulatory authorities were planning an investigation of the company and that the cost of settling the company’s legal problems would come to some $150 million. The authorities floated the idea of detaining some of the people in the delegation.
“Obviously Tigran said, ‘shit, I got to get out of here,'” Price said, adding that Gambaryan canceled his remaining appointments and hopped a plane back to the States.
Yuki Gambaryan, Tigran’s wife, told “Click Here” that she heard about it all in almost real time. “He texted me, saying that, ‘Hey, this is just a heads up, but things are not going well right now and we might get detained.’ So I was aware of it.”
Then, just weeks later, Gambaryan got an invitation from the Nigerian government to meet with regulators again. Gambaryan told his friends that he felt he had an obligation to go. I asked his wife whether she was worried when he left for that second trip at the end of February.
“I was. One hundred percent. Everybody was,” she said.
Soon after officials detained Gambaryan and Anjarwalla, they asked Binance to turn over all the Nigerian transaction data they had. Local newspaper reports then said the government had limited the request to the top 100 users. Central bank officials then began accusing Binance of manipulating the exchange rate of the local currency, the naira, and said the company couldn’t account for tens of billions of dollars in transactions.
All of which Binance has denied.
‘Some pretty bad people were using the platform’The Justice Department’s indictment against the former CEO of Binance showed Zhao and his lieutenants had a penchant for rule-breaking.
“You had, for example, employees of Binance joking about the price of an AK-47 and as if they knew about it in the context of a conversation of terrorist groups using Binance,” said Silverman, the author of that book on cryptocurrencies. “I think the company, at least at the top levels, definitely had a sense that some pretty bad people were using the platform.”
Binance has been left to convince skeptics that they have changed. Richard Teng, the company’s new CEO, is a former Singaporean regulator. He hired people like Gambaryan to help redeem the brand. Nigerian regulators are either unconvinced, or opportunistic. It is hard not to see echoes of the charges the Justice Department brought against Zhao in what Gambaryan is battling in Nigerian courts now.
Nigeria has the second largest cryptocurrency adoption rate in the world, after India. Its crypto transactions topped $56.7 billion last year, according to Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform.
We spoke to half a dozen people close to Tigran’s case in both the US and Nigeria and they say there may have been something else about the Zhao plea agreement that caught the eye of Nigerian officials. CZ agreed to pay a record $4.3 billion in fines and restitution to the US government — one of the biggest fines in corporate history.
Silverman said it sends another message: “I think that indicates the gravity of the situation and maybe the amount of money sloshing around,” he said.
It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that days after Nigerian officials detained the two Binance executives in a government compound, they mused in the local press about potential billion-dollar fines.
Economic woesNigeria’s case against Gambaryan is about more than just trying to hold Binance and the cryptocurrency industry to account. There is a larger context: Nigeria is in the midst of a full-blown economic crisis.
The numbers tell the story. Inflation in Nigeria is now well over 30%. Food prices are up even more than that and the local currency, the naira, has declined in value against the US dollar by some 40% since the beginning of the year. Just to keep up with inflation, Nigerians have started flocking to cryptocurrencies — and trading stablecoins, which are pegged to the US dollar — amongst themselves, peer-to-peer.
Binance just facilitates those trades, it doesn’t control them. But it has angered Nigeria’s central bank nevertheless.
According to Feyi Fawehimni, a Nigerian scholar who has been writing about the nation’s economic and political affairs for more than a decade, it was easy to blame Binance for economic problems.
“People who wanted simple answers simply turned on them and said, Oh, OK, this economy is struggling. Nobody has dollars, who’s fault is this?” he said. “The dollar rate has jumped so significantly and the central bank had no control, so Binance became a kind of scapegoat.”
Central bankers didn’t want to blame the people trading naira, so they blamed the Binance platform instead. “These are unpopular people, right?” he said. “Nobody likes Binance. The US government doesn’t like them. The UK government doesn’t like them. Everyone is suspicious of them as a crypto platform across the world so someone in the government made the calculation that if we go after these people, nobody’s going to really fight for them.”
And the calculation was right. Gambaryan has given critics of Binance a human shape, a shorthand not just for crypto and all the problems it has caused in Nigeria. They didn’t have a former CEO to blame so they settled for a compliance officer.
Nearly all the current and former IRS agents we spoke to for this story said Nigeria wasn’t alone in being unable to see the difference between Gambaryan and the company he worked for — the US government seemed to be doing that, too.
It wasn’t until mid-March that the US State Department seemed to focus on the case. Gambaryan’s wife said he had six visits from embassy personnel in Abuja while he was being held in the government compound. And they’ve visited him once since he’d been moved to Kuje prison. “They seem kind of out of touch to me,” she said. “They don’t seem to understand our sense of urgency.“
We spoke to four people at the State Department familiar with the case. They declined to be identified by name because they are not authorized to speak. But they claimed that the State Department didn’t like to interfere with legal proceedings in other countries and quickly added that Binance wasn’t just any company, before mentioning the Zhao plea agreement and the parade of cases against the industry more generally.
At the end of March, after Gambaryan had been in Nigerian detention for over a month, his case was flagged at the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs. It’s part of the Criminal Division and is supposed to help the department sort through international criminal matters. It is unclear what the response to that query was.
But the rank-and-file agents we spoke to all agreed that the Gambaryan case was moving slowly. The thought is that if he was an ExxonMobil or Apple executive detained overseas, would the response have been quicker?
The only official email that we discovered that went out about Gambaryan among the rank and file came from a special agent in the Cyber Crimes Unit in DC. It was sent to a small group of agents, nearly all of whom either knew Gambaryan well or had worked with him. Two people who had seen the email described its contents as mentioning that Gambaryan had been detained and that he would always be part of the law enforcement family. There was no mention of elevating this up the chain of command, but the email did suggest that everyone keep Yuki Gambaryan and Tigran Gambaryan in their thoughts and prayers.
“I guess the best word for me would be, I think, it is sad,” said John Baker, who was at the IRS with Gambaryan and retired from the government a couple of years ago, so was at liberty to say on the record what other agents told us privately.
“Originally I was thinking he’s well known, so well regarded that somehow the United States would get involved to kind of figure out what’s going on. He has friends in various agencies, including the FBI or the US Attorney’s Office. But it sounds like most people don’t even know what’s happened to him or haven’t heard.”
“Go after the companies and the people making the decisions,” he said. ”But when we’re dealing with people who are, you know, middle management, employees, people who have no way to make a decision other than to receive a paycheck, that’s crazy to me.”
The CEO of Binance, Richard Teng, said on Bloomberg television last week that the company is talking to the Nigerian government to get Gambaryan back. “Our key priority is to get Tigran home safely, right?” he said on the sidelines of a cryptocurrency conference in Dubai. “Tigran is a person of the highest integrity, people that know him know that he has devoted his entire lifetime previously with US agencies. We are giving him and his family all the support needed and our key priority, our prayers, is to bring Tigran home safely as soon as possible.”
So given all of this one could be forgiven for wondering why Gambaryan returned to Nigeria at the end of February after that earlier close call. Hindsight is always 20-20. But his friends say that when the Nigerian government invited him back for that fateful February meeting, Gambaryan thought he saw an opening to make things right.
Former IRS agent Price said that was just the way Gambaryan was. “He believed he could solve it,” he said. “Knowing Tigran’s personality, I certainly could see him believing he would be the only one that could fix it.”
On May 17, a Nigerian judge ruled that Gambaryan can stand trial on behalf of Binance because he is the company’s chief compliance officer and represented the company in meetings in Nigeria. Meanwhile, on April 30, a US court sentenced Chengpeng Zhao, the former Binance CEO, to four months in prison.
An earlier version of this story appeared on the “Click Here” podcast from Recorded Future News.
The post The company man: US glacial response to Nigeria’s detention of former IRS crypto investigator rankles federal agents appeared first on The World from PRX.
On Friday, Tigran Gambaryan — the head of financial crime compliance for Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange — found himself in the last place he’d ever expected to be: a Nigerian courtroom on trial for something his company might have done.
A former investigator with the IRS, he’d spent more than a decade following illicit cryptocurrency transactions back to the people who made them. Rolling up, among others, the alleged founder of AlphaBay, Alexandre Cazes, and Silk Road’s “Dread Pirate Roberts,” Ross Ulbricht.
But now, after a spectacularly bad turn of events, Gambaryan is at the center of a battle between his company and regulators of the Nigerian government. Nigerian regulators have charged him personally for a roster of alleged crimes that they claim Binance has committed, and it is unclear how a middle manager, a former cop, has ended up shouldering the blame. Gambaryan has pleaded not guilty. He says he’s done nothing wrong.
Even so, Nigerian authorities have detained Gambaryan since late February. “Click Here”spoke to more than a dozen current and former IRS and FBI agents who either knew Gambaryan well or had worked with him, and they all voiced the same concern: Why isn’t the US government doing more for one of its own?
“You’re leaving a fellow law enforcement officer, even though he’s out of the game, kind of hanging,” said Matt Price, a former IRS agent who worked with Gambaryan on cases and at Binance. “We can’t believe they’re not doing anything.” And while Gambaryan’s plight appears to have been elevated inside the Biden administration in recent days, agents are asking, “What took them so long?”
“I have done nothing wrong,” Gambaryan said in a cell phone video he filmed back in March. “I’ve been a cop my whole life. I’m asking the United States government to assist me … I need your help, guys. I don’t know if I’ll get out of this without your help. Please help.”
Charges after an escapeGambaryan’s video summed in 40 seconds what is otherwise a very complicated series of unfortunate events: “Hello my name is Tigran Gambaryan and I’m the head of financial crime compliance at Binance,” it began. “I have been detained by the Nigerian government for a month and I don’t know what is going to happen to me after today.”
As Gambaryan recorded the message, it was clear he was worried guards would stop him or grab his phone because just a few hours earlier he had awoken from a nap to learn that the Binance colleague who had originally been detained with him, Nadeem Anjarwalla, had somehow escaped. “I had nothing to do with it, I was not involved in any of it,” he said in the video.
Anjarwalla was Binance’s regional manager in charge of Africa and the afternoon of that video, according to three people familiar with what happened, Gambaryan found a Post-it note from Anjarwalla that essentially said he was sorry, but he was making a break for it. Anjarwalla had put pillows under the covers of his bed so guards would think he was still there.
While it is unclear exactly how he got out of the government compound, it appears he asked guards if he could go to a nearby mosque to say prayers for Ramadan, and while he was at the mosque, he gave them the slip.
As a result, it was left to Gamabaryan to break it to his captors that his colleague was gone. The Nigerian government now claims that it is in negotiations with Kenya to have Anjarwalla extradited.
Their anger and embarrassment at having lost Binance’s country manager seems to have fallen mostly at the feet of Gambaryan. Within days of the escape, the Nigerian authorities charged him, Anjarwalla and Binance itself with tax evasion and money laundering.
The fact that Gambaryan found himself on the receiving end of all of this is particularly ironic because his job at Binance was to act as a liaison between law enforcement and the company and he traveled to Nigeria to teach local investigators how to track shady transactions back to the criminals behind them.
An unexpected announcement The timing of the Nigerian government’s decision to detain Gambaryan and Anjarwalla in February came just months after the Justice Department reached a plea agreement with Binance’s founder and former CEO, Changpeng Zhao. Zhao had agreed to plead guilty to a roster of charges including tax evasion and money laundering related to lax oversight at the Binance exchange.
Zhao, known as CZ, agreed to step down as CEO, surrender his passport, and pay a multibillion-dollar fine. The announcement, rumored for months, rocked the crypto world and, some observers say, may have planted an idea into the minds of some Nigerian officials.
“CZ was sort of a cult figure within the industry,” said Jacob Silverman, who wrote a book with Ben McKenzie on the crypto industry entitled “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.”
He said that people had looked up to CZ because he had managed to build the biggest crypto exchange in the world at breakneck speed, though “he had had a reputation for, you know, to use the old [Mark] Zuckerberg phase, ‘move fast and break things.’”
Silverman said there was always a whiff of something being not-quite-on-the-up-and-up about Zhao. Among other things, he would never travel to the US. He lived in the United Arab Emirates, but he was from Canada.
“People kept wondering, what’s this guy up to in Dubai?” Silverman said, adding that kind of mystery was rife in the early days of the industry.
“There was a sense that the existing rules — especially the existing rules around banking and how money moves — shouldn’t really apply. And that’s certainly what animated a lot of the overseas growth of crypto, especially in East Asia and in Africa. There was this notion that ‘we should be able to move money wherever we want to without really much heed for how we’re doing it or how much we’re sending or to whom.’”
In its case against Zhao, the Justice Department said the former CEO prioritized Binance’s growth, market share, and profits over US law. He admitted to facilitating billions of dollars in cryptocurrency transactions without adhering to some of the most fundamental rules of banking. Binance didn’t implement anti-money laundering protocols or adhere to “know your customer” procedures, which require that a bank or financial institution should know basic information about their customers.
“For several years after Binance first opened in 2017, you could register a Binance account with just an email address and a password,” Silverman said. “And CZ knew that they were flagrantly in violation of Know Your Customer and anti-money laundering laws and regulations.” The Justice Department said as much when it charged Zhao, using internal texts and emails as proof that the attitude was “do it now, and ask for forgiveness later.”
A very familiar looking set of chargesIn early January, just weeks after the Zhao plea agreement was made public, Gambaryan was part of a group of Binance employees who traveled to Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to meet with regulators from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
“It was more of a training event with the EFCC, this is something that Tigran did quite a bit,” Price said. “He did these trips a lot and I had done it quite a bit. You come in and talk to law enforcement people, it’s usually a soft approach and you’re trying to build relationships and trying to train them how to do crypto investigations.”
So in other words, Gambaryan was there to teach the Nigerian regulators how to track cryptocurrency transactions back to the bad guys. But the January trip, the first of two Gambaryan would make in the first part of 2024, took a bad turn. Nigerian officials said they were concerned that Binance was evading taxes and violating anti-money laundering rules.
A Nigerian official allegedly took someone from the Binance team aside during the early January trip. The official said that regulatory authorities were planning an investigation of the company and that the cost of settling the company’s legal problems would come to some $150 million. The authorities floated the idea of detaining some of the people in the delegation.
“Obviously Tigran said, ‘shit, I got to get out of here,'” Price said, adding that Gambaryan canceled his remaining appointments and hopped a plane back to the States.
Yuki Gambaryan, Tigran’s wife, told “Click Here” that she heard about it all in almost real time. “He texted me, saying that, ‘Hey, this is just a heads up, but things are not going well right now and we might get detained.’ So I was aware of it.”
Then, just weeks later, Gambaryan got an invitation from the Nigerian government to meet with regulators again. Gambaryan told his friends that he felt he had an obligation to go. I asked his wife whether she was worried when he left for that second trip at the end of February.
“I was. One hundred percent. Everybody was,” she said.
Soon after officials detained Gambaryan and Anjarwalla, they asked Binance to turn over all the Nigerian transaction data they had. Local newspaper reports then said the government had limited the request to the top 100 users. Central bank officials then began accusing Binance of manipulating the exchange rate of the local currency, the naira, and said the company couldn’t account for tens of billions of dollars in transactions.
All of which Binance has denied.
‘Some pretty bad people were using the platform’The Justice Department’s indictment against the former CEO of Binance showed Zhao and his lieutenants had a penchant for rule-breaking.
“You had, for example, employees of Binance joking about the price of an AK-47 and as if they knew about it in the context of a conversation of terrorist groups using Binance,” said Silverman, the author of that book on cryptocurrencies. “I think the company, at least at the top levels, definitely had a sense that some pretty bad people were using the platform.”
Binance has been left to convince skeptics that they have changed. Richard Teng, the company’s new CEO, is a former Singaporean regulator. He hired people like Gambaryan to help redeem the brand. Nigerian regulators are either unconvinced, or opportunistic. It is hard not to see echoes of the charges the Justice Department brought against Zhao in what Gambaryan is battling in Nigerian courts now.
Nigeria has the second largest cryptocurrency adoption rate in the world, after India. Its crypto transactions topped $56.7 billion last year, according to Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform.
We spoke to half a dozen people close to Tigran’s case in both the US and Nigeria and they say there may have been something else about the Zhao plea agreement that caught the eye of Nigerian officials. CZ agreed to pay a record $4.3 billion in fines and restitution to the US government — one of the biggest fines in corporate history.
Silverman said it sends another message: “I think that indicates the gravity of the situation and maybe the amount of money sloshing around,” he said.
It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that days after Nigerian officials detained the two Binance executives in a government compound, they mused in the local press about potential billion-dollar fines.
Economic woesNigeria’s case against Gambaryan is about more than just trying to hold Binance and the cryptocurrency industry to account. There is a larger context: Nigeria is in the midst of a full-blown economic crisis.
The numbers tell the story. Inflation in Nigeria is now well over 30%. Food prices are up even more than that and the local currency, the naira, has declined in value against the US dollar by some 40% since the beginning of the year. Just to keep up with inflation, Nigerians have started flocking to cryptocurrencies — and trading stablecoins, which are pegged to the US dollar — amongst themselves, peer-to-peer.
Binance just facilitates those trades, it doesn’t control them. But it has angered Nigeria’s central bank nevertheless.
According to Feyi Fawehimni, a Nigerian scholar who has been writing about the nation’s economic and political affairs for more than a decade, it was easy to blame Binance for economic problems.
“People who wanted simple answers simply turned on them and said, Oh, OK, this economy is struggling. Nobody has dollars, who’s fault is this?” he said. “The dollar rate has jumped so significantly and the central bank had no control, so Binance became a kind of scapegoat.”
Central bankers didn’t want to blame the people trading naira, so they blamed the Binance platform instead. “These are unpopular people, right?” he said. “Nobody likes Binance. The US government doesn’t like them. The UK government doesn’t like them. Everyone is suspicious of them as a crypto platform across the world so someone in the government made the calculation that if we go after these people, nobody’s going to really fight for them.”
And the calculation was right. Gambaryan has given critics of Binance a human shape, a shorthand not just for crypto and all the problems it has caused in Nigeria. They didn’t have a former CEO to blame so they settled for a compliance officer.
Nearly all the current and former IRS agents we spoke to for this story said Nigeria wasn’t alone in being unable to see the difference between Gambaryan and the company he worked for — the US government seemed to be doing that, too.
It wasn’t until mid-March that the US State Department seemed to focus on the case. Gambaryan’s wife said he had six visits from embassy personnel in Abuja while he was being held in the government compound. And they’ve visited him once since he’d been moved to Kuje prison. “They seem kind of out of touch to me,” she said. “They don’t seem to understand our sense of urgency.“
We spoke to four people at the State Department familiar with the case. They declined to be identified by name because they are not authorized to speak. But they claimed that the State Department didn’t like to interfere with legal proceedings in other countries and quickly added that Binance wasn’t just any company, before mentioning the Zhao plea agreement and the parade of cases against the industry more generally.
At the end of March, after Gambaryan had been in Nigerian detention for over a month, his case was flagged at the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs. It’s part of the Criminal Division and is supposed to help the department sort through international criminal matters. It is unclear what the response to that query was.
But the rank-and-file agents we spoke to all agreed that the Gambaryan case was moving slowly. The thought is that if he was an ExxonMobil or Apple executive detained overseas, would the response have been quicker?
The only official email that we discovered that went out about Gambaryan among the rank and file came from a special agent in the Cyber Crimes Unit in DC. It was sent to a small group of agents, nearly all of whom either knew Gambaryan well or had worked with him. Two people who had seen the email described its contents as mentioning that Gambaryan had been detained and that he would always be part of the law enforcement family. There was no mention of elevating this up the chain of command, but the email did suggest that everyone keep Yuki Gambaryan and Tigran Gambaryan in their thoughts and prayers.
“I guess the best word for me would be, I think, it is sad,” said John Baker, who was at the IRS with Gambaryan and retired from the government a couple of years ago, so was at liberty to say on the record what other agents told us privately.
“Originally I was thinking he’s well known, so well regarded that somehow the United States would get involved to kind of figure out what’s going on. He has friends in various agencies, including the FBI or the US Attorney’s Office. But it sounds like most people don’t even know what’s happened to him or haven’t heard.”
“Go after the companies and the people making the decisions,” he said. ”But when we’re dealing with people who are, you know, middle management, employees, people who have no way to make a decision other than to receive a paycheck, that’s crazy to me.”
The CEO of Binance, Richard Teng, said on Bloomberg television last week that the company is talking to the Nigerian government to get Gambaryan back. “Our key priority is to get Tigran home safely, right?” he said on the sidelines of a cryptocurrency conference in Dubai. “Tigran is a person of the highest integrity, people that know him know that he has devoted his entire lifetime previously with US agencies. We are giving him and his family all the support needed and our key priority, our prayers, is to bring Tigran home safely as soon as possible.”
So given all of this one could be forgiven for wondering why Gambaryan returned to Nigeria at the end of February after that earlier close call. Hindsight is always 20-20. But his friends say that when the Nigerian government invited him back for that fateful February meeting, Gambaryan thought he saw an opening to make things right.
Former IRS agent Price said that was just the way Gambaryan was. “He believed he could solve it,” he said. “Knowing Tigran’s personality, I certainly could see him believing he would be the only one that could fix it.”
On May 17, a Nigerian judge ruled that Gambaryan can stand trial on behalf of Binance because he is the company’s chief compliance officer and represented the company in meetings in Nigeria. Meanwhile, on April 30, a US court sentenced Chengpeng Zhao, the former Binance CEO, to four months in prison.
An earlier version of this story appeared on the “Click Here” podcast from Recorded Future News.
The post The company man: US glacial response to Nigeria’s detention of former IRS crypto investigator rankles federal agents appeared first on The World from PRX.
Kazakhstan may be considered “off the beaten path” in terms of tourism. But it actually has everything a tourist would hope to experience: culture, history — and a lot of horses.
But when National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek visited Kazakhstan in 2016, he encountered more than historical sites and greenery; he also encountered steadfast traditions, many of which date back to the Silk Road.
Salopek, who is on a 24,000-mile odyssey known as Out of Eden Walk, documenting the globe on foot, joined The World’s host Marco Werman to discuss what he experienced.
Marco Werman: So, you arrived in Kazakhstan … What did you see? How did the place feel, and how is it different from the Caucasus and Eurasia?Paul Salopek: The night I arrived, it was Christmas Eve, and it was freezing. I mean, Kazakhstan is a cold place, so there was snow blowing sideways. It was dark. Everybody in the streets was wearing what appeared to be T-shirts, and I was freezing my bucket off, wearing very expensive clothes that I had on. A friend of a friend of a friend arrived at the dock. Imagine this: Crossing the Caspian Sea, getting off a cargo ship, being bleary-eyed, and there’s a Kazakh friend holding a cake saying: “Merry Christmas!” It was great. It was a good harbinger of things to come.So, tell me more about Central Asia’s significance to the famous Silk Road. This important and ancient trade route stretched from South Asia into Turkey and on into the royal courts of Europe. What role did Central Asia and Kazakhstan play along this trade route? It tied together tens and tens of millions of people, from Africa to Europe to the Far East to China, of course, being the source of a lot of the products. Central Asia was kind of the nexus. It was the crossroads. These guys controlled the land routes across the belly of Eurasia. And many of the empires there, that nobody kind of remembers today, were incredibly wealthy because they would tax all the camel caravans, all the folks carrying stuff, say, from Venice to Sian, not just silk, but, you know, porcelain, luxury products, furs, gold and ideas. It also was the Internet 1.0. Because Islam traveled along these routes, Buddhism traveled along these routes, mathematics, philosophy, art …. It was an extraordinary kind of flowering of culture in the Middle Ages.The team of seamstresses at Kamal Atelier, in Aktau, Kazakhstan, toil on canvas saddle bags.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkNow, one of the first ancient traditions you came across was horse wrangling. What is a horse wrangler in Kazakhstan, exactly? And what role do horse wranglers play in this region? Well, I mean, horses traditionally are kind of iconic, right? Because the people of Kazakhstan have been mounted since day one. There’s some of the original riders, there’s some of the people who, you know, maybe whose ancestors helped invent things like the saddle, the things like a stirrup. Those kinds of tech horse technologies came out of these steppes of Central Asia. So, there’s this kind of cowboy mythos, if you will, of the Kazakh cowboys, and it’s still very strong. But I have to say this: This is an irony of our modern world, walking through the world in the 21st century. … When I landed in western Kazakhstan, I had trouble finding Kazakh cowboys because the vast majority of them have resettled into cities, often pressured under the Soviet Union because Kazakhstan is a former Soviet state, to relocate off the steppes. Authoritarian states don’t like nomads because you can’t control them. So, they often forced them into towns. And I had to actually train some guys to deal with the horses that were carrying them because I grew up in a village in Mexico. So, I was using a kind of Central Mexican technique. The irony of me teaching a couple of Kazakh guys was just not lost on me.Setting out with a new steed along the shores of the Caspian Sea.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkYou mentioned that you grew up in a small village in Mexico. Were there any parallels that you did see between that life and what you saw in Kazakhstan?Absolutely. And I think it’s one reason why, on this whole global journey, when I moved through rural cultures, and about 80% of my foot journey has been rural, is that I have a little bit of an advantage in making connections with local rural people because that’s the environment I grew up in. In Mexico, my neighbors were farmers, shepherds, people who were using their hands. So, I grew up learning how to shoot a mule and how to manage a plow behind a mule. I can rub my fingers on a corn stalk and tell you how healthy it is. And this was invaluable in making connections in a place like Kazakhstan. Yeah, I felt at home.Archaeologist Andrey Astafyev checks out a centuries-old well in western Kazakhstan. Like many, it was dry.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkIf you could leave us with just one of your favorite memories from Kazakhstan, what would it be? I think the sensory experience, the body experience of walking across a sea of grass, will stay with me for the rest of my life. I’ve never been in a place, and Marco, I’ve been around the block even before this project. I’ve been to many, many different countries and continents. This swish of seed heads of grass against your legs for hour after hour, mile after mile, day after day, and the horizon just does not approach. You’re just walking into this kind of two-framed painting of green and blue, day after day after day. And, you know, that might sound kind of, you know, boring or even a bit ominous, but it is actually exhilarating because what that little grass was, which I discovered in occasional shrubs, it was a forest. And that grass hid thousands of birds, mammals and reptiles. It was like being a giant, walking across a miniature forest, where my head was way above the top of the canopy, and just listening to all the life in the grass around me. You know, there were birds, the song just joined us as we walked across western Kazakhstan. It was like just being serenaded on top of a giant rainforest. It was amazing.Parts of this interview have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Listen to the full interview by clicking on the blue audio player above. You’ll learn more about Paul’s experiences in Kazakhstan, including time spent with a stone-knapping archaeologist, a dombra player and an encounter with a mystic healer.Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
The post Out of Eden Walk: The ethos of Kazakhstan appeared first on The World from PRX.
Kazakhstan may be considered “off the beaten path” in terms of tourism. But it actually has everything a tourist would hope to experience: culture, history — and a lot of horses.
But when National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek visited Kazakhstan in 2016, he encountered more than historical sites and greenery; he also encountered steadfast traditions, many of which date back to the Silk Road.
Salopek, who is on a 24,000-mile odyssey known as Out of Eden Walk, documenting the globe on foot, joined The World’s host Marco Werman to discuss what he experienced.
Marco Werman: So, you arrived in Kazakhstan … What did you see? How did the place feel, and how is it different from the Caucasus and Eurasia?Paul Salopek: The night I arrived, it was Christmas Eve, and it was freezing. I mean, Kazakhstan is a cold place, so there was snow blowing sideways. It was dark. Everybody in the streets was wearing what appeared to be T-shirts, and I was freezing my bucket off, wearing very expensive clothes that I had on. A friend of a friend of a friend arrived at the dock. Imagine this: Crossing the Caspian Sea, getting off a cargo ship, being bleary-eyed, and there’s a Kazakh friend holding a cake saying: “Merry Christmas!” It was great. It was a good harbinger of things to come.So, tell me more about Central Asia’s significance to the famous Silk Road. This important and ancient trade route stretched from South Asia into Turkey and on into the royal courts of Europe. What role did Central Asia and Kazakhstan play along this trade route? It tied together tens and tens of millions of people, from Africa to Europe to the Far East to China, of course, being the source of a lot of the products. Central Asia was kind of the nexus. It was the crossroads. These guys controlled the land routes across the belly of Eurasia. And many of the empires there, that nobody kind of remembers today, were incredibly wealthy because they would tax all the camel caravans, all the folks carrying stuff, say, from Venice to Sian, not just silk, but, you know, porcelain, luxury products, furs, gold and ideas. It also was the Internet 1.0. Because Islam traveled along these routes, Buddhism traveled along these routes, mathematics, philosophy, art …. It was an extraordinary kind of flowering of culture in the Middle Ages.The team of seamstresses at Kamal Atelier, in Aktau, Kazakhstan, toil on canvas saddle bags.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkNow, one of the first ancient traditions you came across was horse wrangling. What is a horse wrangler in Kazakhstan, exactly? And what role do horse wranglers play in this region? Well, I mean, horses traditionally are kind of iconic, right? Because the people of Kazakhstan have been mounted since day one. There’s some of the original riders, there’s some of the people who, you know, maybe whose ancestors helped invent things like the saddle, the things like a stirrup. Those kinds of tech horse technologies came out of these steppes of Central Asia. So, there’s this kind of cowboy mythos, if you will, of the Kazakh cowboys, and it’s still very strong. But I have to say this: This is an irony of our modern world, walking through the world in the 21st century. … When I landed in western Kazakhstan, I had trouble finding Kazakh cowboys because the vast majority of them have resettled into cities, often pressured under the Soviet Union because Kazakhstan is a former Soviet state, to relocate off the steppes. Authoritarian states don’t like nomads because you can’t control them. So, they often forced them into towns. And I had to actually train some guys to deal with the horses that were carrying them because I grew up in a village in Mexico. So, I was using a kind of Central Mexican technique. The irony of me teaching a couple of Kazakh guys was just not lost on me.Setting out with a new steed along the shores of the Caspian Sea.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkYou mentioned that you grew up in a small village in Mexico. Were there any parallels that you did see between that life and what you saw in Kazakhstan?Absolutely. And I think it’s one reason why, on this whole global journey, when I moved through rural cultures, and about 80% of my foot journey has been rural, is that I have a little bit of an advantage in making connections with local rural people because that’s the environment I grew up in. In Mexico, my neighbors were farmers, shepherds, people who were using their hands. So, I grew up learning how to shoot a mule and how to manage a plow behind a mule. I can rub my fingers on a corn stalk and tell you how healthy it is. And this was invaluable in making connections in a place like Kazakhstan. Yeah, I felt at home.Archaeologist Andrey Astafyev checks out a centuries-old well in western Kazakhstan. Like many, it was dry.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkIf you could leave us with just one of your favorite memories from Kazakhstan, what would it be? I think the sensory experience, the body experience of walking across a sea of grass, will stay with me for the rest of my life. I’ve never been in a place, and Marco, I’ve been around the block even before this project. I’ve been to many, many different countries and continents. This swish of seed heads of grass against your legs for hour after hour, mile after mile, day after day, and the horizon just does not approach. You’re just walking into this kind of two-framed painting of green and blue, day after day after day. And, you know, that might sound kind of, you know, boring or even a bit ominous, but it is actually exhilarating because what that little grass was, which I discovered in occasional shrubs, it was a forest. And that grass hid thousands of birds, mammals and reptiles. It was like being a giant, walking across a miniature forest, where my head was way above the top of the canopy, and just listening to all the life in the grass around me. You know, there were birds, the song just joined us as we walked across western Kazakhstan. It was like just being serenaded on top of a giant rainforest. It was amazing.Parts of this interview have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Listen to the full interview by clicking on the blue audio player above. You’ll learn more about Paul’s experiences in Kazakhstan, including time spent with a stone-knapping archaeologist, a dombra player and an encounter with a mystic healer.Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
The post Out of Eden Walk: The ethos of Kazakhstan appeared first on The World from PRX.
Twice a month, members of the support group Capitalists Anonymous gather in a small room in Paris, France, beset by chronic buyer’s remorse.
Some arrive worried over how much they consume and don’t know how to stop.
On a recent night, each of the eight people stood up, introduced themselves, and gave their reasons for coming to the support group. A woman named Claire, who didn’t want to share her last name, said she wants to be with people who share her concerns for the planet and mental health.
Participant Olivier Montegut agreed. He said he’s also been really worried about extreme weather changes. Montegut is a reporter who recorded this session for “AirZen,” a French radio program.
“Where I live in southwest France,” he said, “it reached 90 degrees one day — in April. We’ve just had a baby, and I am scared for her future,” he told the group.
Dry lavender fields are pictured outside of Sainte-Croix-du-Verdon, southern France, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022. France was in the midst of its fourth heat wave of the year as the country faced what the government warned was its worst drought on record.Daniel Cole/APMost scientists agree extreme weather is being fueled by climate change, which is exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels. And capitalism is the force behind it all, said the group’s founder, Julien Lamy.
He said it’s a global system that pushes unfettered consumption on the rich and poor alike, and virtually everyone, he said, is addicted.
“To push back, I searched for support groups with a focus on recovery and eventually found Alcoholics Anonymous, with its 12-step method,” Lamy explained. In contrast, Capitalists Anonymous has just eight steps but starts with the same one — admitting that you have a problem.
“It means recognizing that we’re participating in a system that’s destroying life on our planet,” he said. “We must break through our denial.”
“It means recognizing that we’re participating in a system that’s destroying life on our planet. We must break through our denial.”
Julien Lamy, founder, Capitalists Anonymous
From there, members move toward converting their fear into motivation to take on that system in various ways. To some, that means supporting other addicts.
A graffiti reads “wealthy people cost us a lot” on a shop window during a protest on Friday, April 14, 2023, in Paris.Michel Euler/APThese steps might sound familiar to people in drug or alcohol programs, but Lamy said in some ways, capitalism is harder to shake because it permeates every part of modern life.
“I often say that what we’re trying to do is like striving for sobriety,” he said, “but while living inside a bar.” A planet-sized bar.
To avoid feeling overwhelmed, Lamy suggests people take small steps to reduce their impact just to feel better in their personal lives, such as biking to work or cutting back on red meat.
Chapters are just beginning to form in other French cities, like Marseille, in the south.
Resident Anne-Christelle Beauvois said she heard Lamy on the radio and reached out to learn more.
Beauvois worked for years in the fashion industry. She said she became alarmed in the 1990s when so-called fast fashion arrived — that system of mass-producing cheap clothes in sweatshops that then get shipped all over the world.
“It’s nuts,” she said. “You can wake up in the middle of the night, jump on Instagram to follow some influencer or brand and click, you place an order.”
Garment employees work at Arrival Fashion Limited in Gazipur, Bangladesh, Saturday, March 13, 2021. Mahmud Hossain Opo/File/APBeauvois said she has never ordered anything online in her life. But she’s hardly “holier than thou,” she said as she lit a cigarette and took a puff on another addition.
It may be hard to avoid capitalism when the entire global economy depends on it, but Beauvois said people can still produce differently.
“Do we need to make stuff we don’t need? Must we work 50 hours a week? Is it such a problem to add more pleasure to our lives and less work,” she said.
Many separate but related ideas fall under the umbrella of Capitalists Anonymous, and apparently, some of them resonate.
Lamy, the founder, said people from all over Europe — even Mexico — have written to ask how to start their own chapters.
The post Capitalists Anonymous: Weary French seek help in buying and polluting less appeared first on The World from PRX.
Twice a month, members of the support group Capitalists Anonymous gather in a small room in Paris, France, beset by chronic buyer’s remorse.
Some arrive worried over how much they consume and don’t know how to stop.
On a recent night, each of the eight people stood up, introduced themselves, and gave their reasons for coming to the support group. A woman named Claire, who didn’t want to share her last name, said she wants to be with people who share her concerns for the planet and mental health.
Participant Olivier Montegut agreed. He said he’s also been really worried about extreme weather changes. Montegut is a reporter who recorded this session for “AirZen,” a French radio program.
“Where I live in southwest France,” he said, “it reached 90 degrees one day — in April. We’ve just had a baby, and I am scared for her future,” he told the group.
Dry lavender fields are pictured outside of Sainte-Croix-du-Verdon, southern France, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022. France was in the midst of its fourth heat wave of the year as the country faced what the government warned was its worst drought on record.Daniel Cole/APMost scientists agree extreme weather is being fueled by climate change, which is exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels. And capitalism is the force behind it all, said the group’s founder, Julien Lamy.
He said it’s a global system that pushes unfettered consumption on the rich and poor alike, and virtually everyone, he said, is addicted.
“To push back, I searched for support groups with a focus on recovery and eventually found Alcoholics Anonymous, with its 12-step method,” Lamy explained. In contrast, Capitalists Anonymous has just eight steps but starts with the same one — admitting that you have a problem.
“It means recognizing that we’re participating in a system that’s destroying life on our planet,” he said. “We must break through our denial.”
“It means recognizing that we’re participating in a system that’s destroying life on our planet. We must break through our denial.”
Julien Lamy, founder, Capitalists Anonymous
From there, members move toward converting their fear into motivation to take on that system in various ways. To some, that means supporting other addicts.
A graffiti reads “wealthy people cost us a lot” on a shop window during a protest on Friday, April 14, 2023, in Paris.Michel Euler/APThese steps might sound familiar to people in drug or alcohol programs, but Lamy said in some ways, capitalism is harder to shake because it permeates every part of modern life.
“I often say that what we’re trying to do is like striving for sobriety,” he said, “but while living inside a bar.” A planet-sized bar.
To avoid feeling overwhelmed, Lamy suggests people take small steps to reduce their impact just to feel better in their personal lives, such as biking to work or cutting back on red meat.
Chapters are just beginning to form in other French cities, like Marseille, in the south.
Resident Anne-Christelle Beauvois said she heard Lamy on the radio and reached out to learn more.
Beauvois worked for years in the fashion industry. She said she became alarmed in the 1990s when so-called fast fashion arrived — that system of mass-producing cheap clothes in sweatshops that then get shipped all over the world.
“It’s nuts,” she said. “You can wake up in the middle of the night, jump on Instagram to follow some influencer or brand and click, you place an order.”
Garment employees work at Arrival Fashion Limited in Gazipur, Bangladesh, Saturday, March 13, 2021. Mahmud Hossain Opo/File/APBeauvois said she has never ordered anything online in her life. But she’s hardly “holier than thou,” she said as she lit a cigarette and took a puff on another addition.
It may be hard to avoid capitalism when the entire global economy depends on it, but Beauvois said people can still produce differently.
“Do we need to make stuff we don’t need? Must we work 50 hours a week? Is it such a problem to add more pleasure to our lives and less work,” she said.
Many separate but related ideas fall under the umbrella of Capitalists Anonymous, and apparently, some of them resonate.
Lamy, the founder, said people from all over Europe — even Mexico — have written to ask how to start their own chapters.
The post Capitalists Anonymous: Weary French seek help in buying and polluting less appeared first on The World from PRX.
Nearly a billion people in Africa, mostly women, spend hours each day cooking with fuel from wood, animal dung or agricultural residues.
When that fuel is burned, the toxic particulate is inhaled by people near the fire. Research has shown that this leads to the deaths of half a million women and children across Africa each year.
On Wednesday, the heads of state of some 20 African countries gathered in Paris, France, to address the dangers of cooking over open fires.
Lama Mballow stands next to the fire before cooking rice in her home in Bansang, Gambia, Sept. 29, 2021.Leo Correa/APDymphna van der Lans directs the Clean Cooking Alliance, a nongovernmental organization trying to improve the safety of cooking around the globe.
Van der Lans said this issue mostly impacts women in the so-called Global South because they often bear the responsibility of collecting and using firewood to cook their meals over an open fire. The toxic particles from the fire impacts their health as well as their children and even the health of their unborn children.
Charcoal for sale in Nairobi, Kenya. Coal is often used to prepare meals over an open fire in many parts of Africa.Courtesy of Peter Irungu/Clean Cooking AllianceWhile some governments have pushed for national programs to make sure that families — specifically women — have access to cleaner and safer cooking solutions, the fatality rates are still high in many African countries.
“One of the things that was significantly lacking over the last couple of years is a sense of urgency to redress this global issue and awareness,” Van der Lans said.
At the Paris summit on Wednesday, the United States made an announcement to commit more than $2 billion toward clean cooking.
A woman in Nairobi, Kenya, prepares a meal using a gas stove. The gas cylinder has a smart meter allowing users to pay for fuel using a mobile application.Courtesy of Daniel Mutema/Clean Cooking AllianceVan der Lans said increased concerns around climate change have led to greater concern about cleaner cooking methods worldwide.
“I think very few people would be aware that the global emissions for clean cooking on a yearly basis are equivalent to the global emissions from the aviation industry,” Van der Lans said.
“I think very few people would be aware that the global emissions for clean cooking on a yearly basis are equivalent to the global emissions from the aviation industry.”
Dymphna van der Lans, CEO, Clean Cooking Alliance
Investing in cleaner cooking methods, she said, “immediately brings health benefits to the woman who would [be] directly impacted.”
A woman in Nairobi, Kenya, refills a stove with a canister of ethanol.Courtesy of Peter Irungu/Clean Cooking AllianceThere’s not a silver bullet when it comes to cleaner cooking, Van der Lans said. It requires much more of a conversation about what individual countries need to complete an energy transition — and to make sure that people from all levels of affordability can access clean cooking solutions, she added.
The idea is to go from improved biomass stoves to actually using biogas, to bioethanol, to LPG, to ultimately using renewable powered grids for electric cooking, van der Lans said.
Cleaner cooking methods must also take cultural practices into account, she added.
“We know for a fact that there are different methods to prepare those staples of families’ diets and their nutritional intake. And so, absolutely, the design of these products really have to be centered around the users,” Van der Lans said, to make sure their needs match with the latest services and products.
A woman in Nairobi, Kenya, prepares a meal using an electric induction stove.Courtesy of Peter Irungu/Clean Cooking AllianceVan der Lans said it was fantastic to see leaders at the highest levels of government take the issue of clean cooking methods more seriously.
Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Wonie Bio has made a strong commitment toward clean cooking in his country.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron, left, welcomes Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan prior to a meeting as part of the “Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa” at the Elysee Presidential Palace, May 14, 2024, in Paris.Thibault Camus/APAnd Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who co-hosted the summit in Paris, has shown tremendous leadership in her country. Tanzania has committed to a full transition to clean cooking by 2030.
The post The push to end harmful cooking methods worldwide appeared first on The World from PRX.
Nearly a billion people in Africa, mostly women, spend hours each day cooking with fuel from wood, animal dung or agricultural residues.
When that fuel is burned, the toxic particulate is inhaled by people near the fire. Research has shown that this leads to the deaths of half a million women and children across Africa each year.
On Wednesday, the heads of state of some 20 African countries gathered in Paris, France, to address the dangers of cooking over open fires.
Lama Mballow stands next to the fire before cooking rice in her home in Bansang, Gambia, Sept. 29, 2021.Leo Correa/APDymphna van der Lans directs the Clean Cooking Alliance, a nongovernmental organization trying to improve the safety of cooking around the globe.
Van der Lans said this issue mostly impacts women in the so-called Global South because they often bear the responsibility of collecting and using firewood to cook their meals over an open fire. The toxic particles from the fire impacts their health as well as their children and even the health of their unborn children.
Charcoal for sale in Nairobi, Kenya. Coal is often used to prepare meals over an open fire in many parts of Africa.Courtesy of Peter Irungu/Clean Cooking AllianceWhile some governments have pushed for national programs to make sure that families — specifically women — have access to cleaner and safer cooking solutions, the fatality rates are still high in many African countries.
“One of the things that was significantly lacking over the last couple of years is a sense of urgency to redress this global issue and awareness,” Van der Lans said.
At the Paris summit on Wednesday, the United States made an announcement to commit more than $2 billion toward clean cooking.
A woman in Nairobi, Kenya, prepares a meal using a gas stove. The gas cylinder has a smart meter allowing users to pay for fuel using a mobile application.Courtesy of Daniel Mutema/Clean Cooking AllianceVan der Lans said increased concerns around climate change have led to greater concern about cleaner cooking methods worldwide.
“I think very few people would be aware that the global emissions for clean cooking on a yearly basis are equivalent to the global emissions from the aviation industry,” Van der Lans said.
“I think very few people would be aware that the global emissions for clean cooking on a yearly basis are equivalent to the global emissions from the aviation industry.”
Dymphna van der Lans, CEO, Clean Cooking Alliance
Investing in cleaner cooking methods, she said, “immediately brings health benefits to the woman who would [be] directly impacted.”
A woman in Nairobi, Kenya, refills a stove with a canister of ethanol.Courtesy of Peter Irungu/Clean Cooking AllianceThere’s not a silver bullet when it comes to cleaner cooking, Van der Lans said. It requires much more of a conversation about what individual countries need to complete an energy transition — and to make sure that people from all levels of affordability can access clean cooking solutions, she added.
The idea is to go from improved biomass stoves to actually using biogas, to bioethanol, to LPG, to ultimately using renewable powered grids for electric cooking, van der Lans said.
Cleaner cooking methods must also take cultural practices into account, she added.
“We know for a fact that there are different methods to prepare those staples of families’ diets and their nutritional intake. And so, absolutely, the design of these products really have to be centered around the users,” Van der Lans said, to make sure their needs match with the latest services and products.
A woman in Nairobi, Kenya, prepares a meal using an electric induction stove.Courtesy of Peter Irungu/Clean Cooking AllianceVan der Lans said it was fantastic to see leaders at the highest levels of government take the issue of clean cooking methods more seriously.
Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Wonie Bio has made a strong commitment toward clean cooking in his country.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron, left, welcomes Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan prior to a meeting as part of the “Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa” at the Elysee Presidential Palace, May 14, 2024, in Paris.Thibault Camus/APAnd Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who co-hosted the summit in Paris, has shown tremendous leadership in her country. Tanzania has committed to a full transition to clean cooking by 2030.
The post The push to end harmful cooking methods worldwide appeared first on The World from PRX.
Egypt and Israel have been at peace since 1979, thanks to the Camp David peace agreement — a consistent pillar of stability in the Middle East.
But the war in Gaza is putting some serious strain on that relationship.
The tipping point came last week when Israel gave Egypt just a few hours notice before sending troops into the eastern outskirts of Rafah, and then seizing control of the border crossing there, according to Mirette Mabrouk. She’s an Egypt expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Images of Israeli flags flying at that border terminal set off alarm bells back in Cairo. That’s when the Egyptian government decided to halt cooperation with Israel for aid shipments going into Rafah.
“I can tell you flat out — the Egyptians are not happy about this. They’re livid,” Mabrouk said.
“The Egyptians have felt that the Israelis have consistently taken them for granted, underestimated their position, underestimated the costs of this to the Egyptians.”
“The Egyptians have felt that the Israelis have consistently taken them for granted, underestimated their position, underestimated the costs of this to the Egyptians.”
Mirette Mabrouk, Egypt expert, Middle East Institute in Washington
Egypt is now considering a downgrade in its relations with Israel, Mabrouk added.
The doomsday scenario for Egypt is seeing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza fleeing over the border into Egyptian territory.
That has not happened yet.
But after more than a million displaced people crowded into Rafah, the Israeli military is now conducting operations in and around the city, pushing some 350,000 Gaza residents to relocate yet again.
And aid groups say famine is looming in parts of the territory.
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip arrive at a makeshift tent camp west of Rafah, Gaza, May 10, 2024.Abdel Kareem Hana/APOn Tuesday, Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, wrote on the social media platform X that, “The world places the responsibility for the humanitarian situation on Israel, but the key to preventing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now in the hands of our Egyptian friends.”
The World submitted an interview request to Israel’s foreign ministry. A spokesperson responded by pointing to Katz’s recent statement on X and said the ministry is not commenting on relations with Egypt at this time.
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on buildings near the separating wall between Egypt and Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, May 7, 2024.Ramez Habboub/APAmr Hamzawy, the director of the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that blaming Egypt for the shortage of humanitarian aid in Gaza is a misleading version of reality.
“The fact of the matter is that Israel has different crossings with Gaza that can be used for getting humanitarian aid in,” Hamzawy said.
Those crossings have been closed for significant amounts of time, he added. Secondly, he said Egypt only halted cooperation at Rafah last week, after the Israeli military moved in.
“Now, Egypt cannot let humanitarian aid in if military operations are still happening in Rafah right at the crossing, because it puts in harm’s way the lives of humanitarian aid workers, and there were incidents where humanitarian aid workers were killed,” Hamzawy said.
In early April, seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli military strike.
A bundle of humanitarian aid with the logo of World Central Kitchen (WCK) is seen at the Kerem Shalom border crossing to Gaza, Israel, May 1, 2024. Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/Photo/APEgypt’s foreign minister weighed in on social media Tuesday as well, saying that Israel is, “solely responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe currently endured by Palestinians in Gaza.”
On Wednesday, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz published a story that said Israeli officials are concerned that Egypt might stop participating in negotiations with Hamas for a ceasefire and release of hostages.
But Hamzawy said he doubts that the Egyptians are going to walk away from that role as mediator between Israel and Hamas just yet.
“I believe that from a national security perspective, Egypt will continue to try to communicate while signaling to Israel that what is happening right now is not acceptable,” he said.
“I believe that from a national security perspective, Egypt will continue to try to communicate while signaling to Israel that what is happening right now is not acceptable.”
Amr Hamzawy, director, Middle East program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Egyptian government is no fan of Hamas. It’s the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood — which is banned in Egypt.
But Hamzawy said that doesn’t mean the Egyptians are OK with the Israeli military controlling the only border crossing it shares with Gaza.
“Egypt is adamant, and I believe this is not only an Egyptian position but an Arab position, that what is needed is to restore Palestinian presence, that this should not be the pretext for an Israeli re-occupation of the Gaza Strip,” Hamzawy said.
The Israeli government has said it is opposed to giving the Palestinian Authority a role in postwar Gaza — and that’s another point of contention with Egypt.
“This is a particularly difficult time in Egyptian-Israeli relations,” said Samer Shehata, a professor of Middle East politics at The University of Oklahoma.
“I don’t think that the Camp David treaty is about to collapse or there’s going to be a declaration of war or anything like that, but it is quite rare for the Egyptians to take the measures that they’ve done recently.”
On Sunday, Egypt came out in support of South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice that brings charges of genocide against Israel for what it’s doing in Gaza.
Shehata said that’s more of a symbolic move at this point.
It is worth noting that since the start of the war in Gaza, Egypt has not recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv.
The post Gaza war is putting Egyptian-Israeli relations to the test appeared first on The World from PRX.
Egypt and Israel have been at peace since 1979, thanks to the Camp David peace agreement — a consistent pillar of stability in the Middle East.
But the war in Gaza is putting some serious strain on that relationship.
The tipping point came last week when Israel gave Egypt just a few hours notice before sending troops into the eastern outskirts of Rafah, and then seizing control of the border crossing there, according to Mirette Mabrouk. She’s an Egypt expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Images of Israeli flags flying at that border terminal set off alarm bells back in Cairo. That’s when the Egyptian government decided to halt cooperation with Israel for aid shipments going into Rafah.
“I can tell you flat out — the Egyptians are not happy about this. They’re livid,” Mabrouk said.
“The Egyptians have felt that the Israelis have consistently taken them for granted, underestimated their position, underestimated the costs of this to the Egyptians.”
“The Egyptians have felt that the Israelis have consistently taken them for granted, underestimated their position, underestimated the costs of this to the Egyptians.”
Mirette Mabrouk, Egypt expert, Middle East Institute in Washington
Egypt is now considering a downgrade in its relations with Israel, Mabrouk added.
The doomsday scenario for Egypt is seeing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza fleeing over the border into Egyptian territory.
That has not happened yet.
But after more than a million displaced people crowded into Rafah, the Israeli military is now conducting operations in and around the city, pushing some 350,000 Gaza residents to relocate yet again.
And aid groups say famine is looming in parts of the territory.
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip arrive at a makeshift tent camp west of Rafah, Gaza, May 10, 2024.Abdel Kareem Hana/APOn Tuesday, Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, wrote on the social media platform X that, “The world places the responsibility for the humanitarian situation on Israel, but the key to preventing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now in the hands of our Egyptian friends.”
The World submitted an interview request to Israel’s foreign ministry. A spokesperson responded by pointing to Katz’s recent statement on X and said the ministry is not commenting on relations with Egypt at this time.
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on buildings near the separating wall between Egypt and Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, May 7, 2024.Ramez Habboub/APAmr Hamzawy, the director of the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that blaming Egypt for the shortage of humanitarian aid in Gaza is a misleading version of reality.
“The fact of the matter is that Israel has different crossings with Gaza that can be used for getting humanitarian aid in,” Hamzawy said.
Those crossings have been closed for significant amounts of time, he added. Secondly, he said Egypt only halted cooperation at Rafah last week, after the Israeli military moved in.
“Now, Egypt cannot let humanitarian aid in if military operations are still happening in Rafah right at the crossing, because it puts in harm’s way the lives of humanitarian aid workers, and there were incidents where humanitarian aid workers were killed,” Hamzawy said.
In early April, seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli military strike.
A bundle of humanitarian aid with the logo of World Central Kitchen (WCK) is seen at the Kerem Shalom border crossing to Gaza, Israel, May 1, 2024. Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/Photo/APEgypt’s foreign minister weighed in on social media Tuesday as well, saying that Israel is, “solely responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe currently endured by Palestinians in Gaza.”
On Wednesday, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz published a story that said Israeli officials are concerned that Egypt might stop participating in negotiations with Hamas for a ceasefire and release of hostages.
But Hamzawy said he doubts that the Egyptians are going to walk away from that role as mediator between Israel and Hamas just yet.
“I believe that from a national security perspective, Egypt will continue to try to communicate while signaling to Israel that what is happening right now is not acceptable,” he said.
“I believe that from a national security perspective, Egypt will continue to try to communicate while signaling to Israel that what is happening right now is not acceptable.”
Amr Hamzawy, director, Middle East program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Egyptian government is no fan of Hamas. It’s the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood — which is banned in Egypt.
But Hamzawy said that doesn’t mean the Egyptians are OK with the Israeli military controlling the only border crossing it shares with Gaza.
“Egypt is adamant, and I believe this is not only an Egyptian position but an Arab position, that what is needed is to restore Palestinian presence, that this should not be the pretext for an Israeli re-occupation of the Gaza Strip,” Hamzawy said.
The Israeli government has said it is opposed to giving the Palestinian Authority a role in postwar Gaza — and that’s another point of contention with Egypt.
“This is a particularly difficult time in Egyptian-Israeli relations,” said Samer Shehata, a professor of Middle East politics at The University of Oklahoma.
“I don’t think that the Camp David treaty is about to collapse or there’s going to be a declaration of war or anything like that, but it is quite rare for the Egyptians to take the measures that they’ve done recently.”
On Sunday, Egypt came out in support of South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice that brings charges of genocide against Israel for what it’s doing in Gaza.
Shehata said that’s more of a symbolic move at this point.
It is worth noting that since the start of the war in Gaza, Egypt has not recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv.
The post Gaza war is putting Egyptian-Israeli relations to the test appeared first on The World from PRX.
In the South Caucasus, neighboring countries Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority-ethnic Armenian region inside Azerbaijan.
Now, the two countries are engaged in peace talks, hoping to normalize relations.
But many Armenians feel like their leadership is making too many concessions — and thousands of protesters are demonstrating in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, demanding the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, one of the leaders of the protests, said at a rally in Yerevan last week, “Nikol Pashinyan, you have one hour to submit your resignation.”
In September, Azerbaijan’s military seized Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in the exodus of tens of thousands of Armenians from the area.
They’re now displaced inside Armenia, unlikely to return to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is now fully under Azerbaijan’s control and its status is off the table in the negotiations between the two countries.
That’s part of what’s making Armenians angry with their government.
Tigran Grigoryan is the head of the Regional Center for Democracy and Security, a Yerevan-based think tank.
“The majority of the society is dissatisfied with the government’s policies when it comes to security, foreign policy, the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh,” he said.
“The majority of the society is dissatisfied with the government’s policies when it comes to security, foreign policy, the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Tigran Grigoryan, Regional Center for Democracy and Security
Grigoryan said that the decision by the Armenian government to give Azerbaijan four border villages was one of the catalysts for the mass protests.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council of the Eurasian Economic Union at the Kremlin in Moscow, May 8, 2024. Thousands of protesters gathered May 9, 2024, in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to demand the resignation of Pashinyan over his government’s decision to hand over control of border villages to Armenia’s longtime rival Azerbaijan.Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool photo via APPashinyan defended the move, citing the need to “convert the theoretical peace agenda into an actual peaceful reality.”
But Grigoryan said that negotiating the border is one of the trickiest aspects of the peace talks, and he said the leadership in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, is negotiating in bad faith.
“It is interested in peace, but it is interested in its own interpretation of peace. You can call it a concept of victor’s peace.”
Grigoryan said that many Armenians question whether a peace deal with Azerbaijan could deliver the security guarantees that are vital for a lasting peace.
Advocating for prisoner release Another unresolved question is the issue of prisoners, which stems back to Azerbaijan’s military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“After the offensive in September 2023, Azerbaijan managed to capture several of the leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh, the military and political elite of Nagorno-Karabakh are in captivity in Baku.”
One of those leaders who was captured was Ruben Vardanyan, the former state minister of Nagorno-Karabakh.
His son, David Vardanyan, has been advocating for his father’s release.
“The Armenian government and Azerbaijan have been very, very silent, publicly at least, on the state of the prisoners, and how they fit into the overall peace agreement.”
David Vardanyan said that his father moved to Nagorno-Karabakh in the summer of 2022 to support local Armenians through philanthropy, and later, as a political leader.
He served as state minister for a short stint but soon, the situation there deteriorated.
Azerbaijan imposed a blockade on Nagorno-Karabakh, which led to the military operation, and eventually, the detention of Ruben Vardanyan and others.
“I learned about his detainment actually from social media because one of my friends sent me an article saying, ‘Is this true? Have you seen this?’ My first reaction was shock and disbelief.”
In this photo taken from video released by State Security Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Sept. 28, 2023, Ruben Vardanyan, the former head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist government center, stands between Azerbaijani security service agents in Baku, Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani authorities have arrested several former separatist leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh after reclaiming control of the Armenian-populated breakaway region in a lightning military operation last month. Azerbaijan’s APA news agency says that Arayik Harutyunyan, who led the region before stepping down at the beginning of September, has been arrested and is being brought to the Azerbaijani capital. State Security Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan via APDavid Vardanyan said he’s only spoken with his father once since he was captured.
“He was put in isolation and solitary confinement as punishment with no access to anything from the outside world.”
He said Ruben Vardanyan has access to a lawyer in Baku, but that it’s unclear when he’ll have his day in court.
David Vardanyan said that his father is advocating for all Armenian prisoners who remain in Azerbaijan’s custody, and he hopes this issue rises to the top of the peace negotiations agenda.
“The unconditional release of these prisoners must be one of the key topics, otherwise there will be no long-lasting peace.”
‘It will take years to normalize’One thing that Armenians and Azerbaijanis agree on is that there’s still a long way to go before the two sides reach a peace deal.
Independent Baku-based analyst Zaur Shiriyev said that a deal won’t solve some of the fundamental disagreements between the two countries.
“Everyone is asking the question that when the sides are going to sign a peace agreement, but I think that peace agreement and peace [are] two different things.”
Shiriyev said the two countries made some progress in the border dispute — they’ve discussed the prisoner issue, and even exchanged prisoners in December, which he said is a positive sign.
He also said that despite fears in Armenia, he doesn’t believe that Azerbaijan is threatening further use of force because it fears sanctions and further isolation.
But despite the progress, Shiriyev said signing a deal won’t be enough to fully reset relations.
“I’m against seeing a peace agreement as a magic formula. Majority in our society is believing that [a] peace agreement is going to resolve everything. It is going to remove the threat of the new war between the sides. However, it will take years to normalize and become good neighbors.”
The post Armenia-Azerbaijan engage in peace talks amid mass protests in Yerevan appeared first on The World from PRX.
In the South Caucasus, neighboring countries Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority-ethnic Armenian region inside Azerbaijan.
Now, the two countries are engaged in peace talks, hoping to normalize relations.
But many Armenians feel like their leadership is making too many concessions — and thousands of protesters are demonstrating in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, demanding the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, one of the leaders of the protests, said at a rally in Yerevan last week, “Nikol Pashinyan, you have one hour to submit your resignation.”
In September, Azerbaijan’s military seized Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in the exodus of tens of thousands of Armenians from the area.
They’re now displaced inside Armenia, unlikely to return to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is now fully under Azerbaijan’s control and its status is off the table in the negotiations between the two countries.
That’s part of what’s making Armenians angry with their government.
Tigran Grigoryan is the head of the Regional Center for Democracy and Security, a Yerevan-based think tank.
“The majority of the society is dissatisfied with the government’s policies when it comes to security, foreign policy, the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh,” he said.
“The majority of the society is dissatisfied with the government’s policies when it comes to security, foreign policy, the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Tigran Grigoryan, Regional Center for Democracy and Security
Grigoryan said that the decision by the Armenian government to give Azerbaijan four border villages was one of the catalysts for the mass protests.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council of the Eurasian Economic Union at the Kremlin in Moscow, May 8, 2024. Thousands of protesters gathered May 9, 2024, in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to demand the resignation of Pashinyan over his government’s decision to hand over control of border villages to Armenia’s longtime rival Azerbaijan.Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool photo via APPashinyan defended the move, citing the need to “convert the theoretical peace agenda into an actual peaceful reality.”
But Grigoryan said that negotiating the border is one of the trickiest aspects of the peace talks, and he said the leadership in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, is negotiating in bad faith.
“It is interested in peace, but it is interested in its own interpretation of peace. You can call it a concept of victor’s peace.”
Grigoryan said that many Armenians question whether a peace deal with Azerbaijan could deliver the security guarantees that are vital for a lasting peace.
Advocating for prisoner release Another unresolved question is the issue of prisoners, which stems back to Azerbaijan’s military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“After the offensive in September 2023, Azerbaijan managed to capture several of the leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh, the military and political elite of Nagorno-Karabakh are in captivity in Baku.”
One of those leaders who was captured was Ruben Vardanyan, the former state minister of Nagorno-Karabakh.
His son, David Vardanyan, has been advocating for his father’s release.
“The Armenian government and Azerbaijan have been very, very silent, publicly at least, on the state of the prisoners, and how they fit into the overall peace agreement.”
David Vardanyan said that his father moved to Nagorno-Karabakh in the summer of 2022 to support local Armenians through philanthropy, and later, as a political leader.
He served as state minister for a short stint but soon, the situation there deteriorated.
Azerbaijan imposed a blockade on Nagorno-Karabakh, which led to the military operation, and eventually, the detention of Ruben Vardanyan and others.
“I learned about his detainment actually from social media because one of my friends sent me an article saying, ‘Is this true? Have you seen this?’ My first reaction was shock and disbelief.”
In this photo taken from video released by State Security Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Sept. 28, 2023, Ruben Vardanyan, the former head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist government center, stands between Azerbaijani security service agents in Baku, Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani authorities have arrested several former separatist leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh after reclaiming control of the Armenian-populated breakaway region in a lightning military operation last month. Azerbaijan’s APA news agency says that Arayik Harutyunyan, who led the region before stepping down at the beginning of September, has been arrested and is being brought to the Azerbaijani capital. State Security Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan via APDavid Vardanyan said he’s only spoken with his father once since he was captured.
“He was put in isolation and solitary confinement as punishment with no access to anything from the outside world.”
He said Ruben Vardanyan has access to a lawyer in Baku, but that it’s unclear when he’ll have his day in court.
David Vardanyan said that his father is advocating for all Armenian prisoners who remain in Azerbaijan’s custody, and he hopes this issue rises to the top of the peace negotiations agenda.
“The unconditional release of these prisoners must be one of the key topics, otherwise there will be no long-lasting peace.”
‘It will take years to normalize’One thing that Armenians and Azerbaijanis agree on is that there’s still a long way to go before the two sides reach a peace deal.
Independent Baku-based analyst Zaur Shiriyev said that a deal won’t solve some of the fundamental disagreements between the two countries.
“Everyone is asking the question that when the sides are going to sign a peace agreement, but I think that peace agreement and peace [are] two different things.”
Shiriyev said the two countries made some progress in the border dispute — they’ve discussed the prisoner issue, and even exchanged prisoners in December, which he said is a positive sign.
He also said that despite fears in Armenia, he doesn’t believe that Azerbaijan is threatening further use of force because it fears sanctions and further isolation.
But despite the progress, Shiriyev said signing a deal won’t be enough to fully reset relations.
“I’m against seeing a peace agreement as a magic formula. Majority in our society is believing that [a] peace agreement is going to resolve everything. It is going to remove the threat of the new war between the sides. However, it will take years to normalize and become good neighbors.”
The post Armenia-Azerbaijan engage in peace talks amid mass protests in Yerevan appeared first on The World from PRX.
Over the weekend, the Israeli military continued its operations in and around the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, as fighting also spread into parts of northern Gaza.
After months of multilateral negotiations, the talks to end this war are at an impasse. Many factors still stand in the way of a ceasefire deal.
The top Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar would need to sign off on any negotiated agreement to release the remaining hostages held in Gaza and secure a truce.
Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, delivers a speech during a meeting with people at a hall on the sea side of Gaza City, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Adel Hana/APSinwar is considered to be the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians and ended with more than 250 people taken hostage.
Since 2007, Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip. The Islamist group claims to have both a political branch and a military wing. Hamas leaders are active within the Gaza Strip, as well as in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria and Turkey.
“Sinwar is a true believer and a hardliner, who first went to jail for killing fellow Palestinians and is willing to pursue his agenda now, even at the cost of more Palestinian lives. That was his calculation going into this in October,” said Matthew Levitt, who directs the counterterrorism program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Levitt was referring to Sinwar’s conviction for killing four Palestinians in Gaza who were accused of collaborating with Israel. According to the Washington Post, Sinwar confessed to killing 12 people and also described to Israeli interrogators how he strangled his victims to death.
Yahya Sinwar, center, the Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, waves to supporters during a rally marking the 35th anniversary of the group’s foundation, in Gaza City, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022. Fatima Shbair/APLevitt said the conflict playing out in Gaza right now — with an estimated 35,000 Palestinians dead — was actually part of Sinwar’s plan.
“This was the entire strategy of Oct. 7, to do something so over-the-top — so gruesome — that it would have to engender a massive Israeli response. And that massive Israeli response would lead to many Palestinians dead.”
Levitt, author of “Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad,” also pointed out that “Hamas built bunkers for its soldiers, but not a single bomb shelter for its civilians. And yet, Sinwar seems very comfortable to pursue this.”
Ultimately, Levitt said, the goal of Yahya Sinwar and the other top leaders of Hamas is to destroy Israel and replace it with Islamic rule.
Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, greets his supporters upon his arrival at a meeting in a hall on the seaside of Gaza City on April 30, 2022.Adel Hana/APAccording to the Wall Street Journal, Arab mediators who are in contact with Hamas said that Sinwar believes he’s already won the war, even if he ends up being killed by Israel. That’s because the deaths of Palestinians have put the issue of the conflict back on the international agenda.
About a week ago, Israel’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said that Sinwar is “living on borrowed time.” He said the Israeli military has come close to killing Sinwar in recent months, and that Sinwar will not come out of this confrontation alive.
“Israelis gunning for Sinwar is like America gunning for Osama bin Laden,” Levitt said. But eliminating Sinwar would not necessarily end the war, Levitt added. “If you want to give him martyrdom, he’ll take it.”
Levitt also said that what ends this war is securing the release of the hostages. “That is what opens the door toward something new coming in Gaza, the Israelis pulling out, etcetera.”
Meanwhile, Yahya Sinwar is assumed to be hiding somewhere in Gaza, in an underground bunker.
Sinwar spent more than 20 years in Israeli prisons. He speaks fluent Hebrew, and he was released in a 2011 prisoner swap, along with about 1,000 other Palestinians, in exchange for a single kidnapped Israeli soldier. Sinwar has a reputation as being ruthless and ideologically driven.
Sinwar was once in charge of Hamas’s internal security. And he remains in control of the war-torn Gaza Strip today.
Bassam Naim, a leader with the political bureau of Hamas in Doha, Qatar, said they have “continuous contact with the leadership inside Gaza on a daily basis.”
Mati Abdulhadi, a Palestinian political expert with the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA), a think tank in Jerusalem, said it’s important to consider Hamas’s leadership within a broader context — not just the most recent conflict.
“It’s a question of the people themselves who have been living in the present and continuous control of Israeli Palestinian occupation for many years,” he said.
Abdulhadi also cautioned that people should focus less on Yahya Sinwar and more on the death and destruction in Gaza — and work to end it as soon as possible.
The post Who is Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and what does he want? appeared first on The World from PRX.
Over the weekend, the Israeli military continued its operations in and around the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, as fighting also spread into parts of northern Gaza.
After months of multilateral negotiations, the talks to end this war are at an impasse. Many factors still stand in the way of a ceasefire deal.
The top Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar would need to sign off on any negotiated agreement to release the remaining hostages held in Gaza and secure a truce.
Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, delivers a speech during a meeting with people at a hall on the sea side of Gaza City, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Adel Hana/APSinwar is considered to be the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians and ended with more than 250 people taken hostage.
Since 2007, Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip. The Islamist group claims to have both a political branch and a military wing. Hamas leaders are active within the Gaza Strip, as well as in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria and Turkey.
“Sinwar is a true believer and a hardliner, who first went to jail for killing fellow Palestinians and is willing to pursue his agenda now, even at the cost of more Palestinian lives. That was his calculation going into this in October,” said Matthew Levitt, who directs the counterterrorism program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Levitt was referring to Sinwar’s conviction for killing four Palestinians in Gaza who were accused of collaborating with Israel. According to the Washington Post, Sinwar confessed to killing 12 people and also described to Israeli interrogators how he strangled his victims to death.
Yahya Sinwar, center, the Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, waves to supporters during a rally marking the 35th anniversary of the group’s foundation, in Gaza City, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022. Fatima Shbair/APLevitt said the conflict playing out in Gaza right now — with an estimated 35,000 Palestinians dead — was actually part of Sinwar’s plan.
“This was the entire strategy of Oct. 7, to do something so over-the-top — so gruesome — that it would have to engender a massive Israeli response. And that massive Israeli response would lead to many Palestinians dead.”
Levitt, author of “Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad,” also pointed out that “Hamas built bunkers for its soldiers, but not a single bomb shelter for its civilians. And yet, Sinwar seems very comfortable to pursue this.”
Ultimately, Levitt said, the goal of Yahya Sinwar and the other top leaders of Hamas is to destroy Israel and replace it with Islamic rule.
Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, greets his supporters upon his arrival at a meeting in a hall on the seaside of Gaza City on April 30, 2022.Adel Hana/APAccording to the Wall Street Journal, Arab mediators who are in contact with Hamas said that Sinwar believes he’s already won the war, even if he ends up being killed by Israel. That’s because the deaths of Palestinians have put the issue of the conflict back on the international agenda.
About a week ago, Israel’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said that Sinwar is “living on borrowed time.” He said the Israeli military has come close to killing Sinwar in recent months, and that Sinwar will not come out of this confrontation alive.
“Israelis gunning for Sinwar is like America gunning for Osama bin Laden,” Levitt said. But eliminating Sinwar would not necessarily end the war, Levitt added. “If you want to give him martyrdom, he’ll take it.”
Levitt also said that what ends this war is securing the release of the hostages. “That is what opens the door toward something new coming in Gaza, the Israelis pulling out, etcetera.”
Meanwhile, Yahya Sinwar is assumed to be hiding somewhere in Gaza, in an underground bunker.
Sinwar spent more than 20 years in Israeli prisons. He speaks fluent Hebrew, and he was released in a 2011 prisoner swap, along with about 1,000 other Palestinians, in exchange for a single kidnapped Israeli soldier. Sinwar has a reputation as being ruthless and ideologically driven.
Sinwar was once in charge of Hamas’s internal security. And he remains in control of the war-torn Gaza Strip today.
Bassam Naim, a leader with the political bureau of Hamas in Doha, Qatar, said they have “continuous contact with the leadership inside Gaza on a daily basis.”
Mati Abdulhadi, a Palestinian political expert with the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA), a think tank in Jerusalem, said it’s important to consider Hamas’s leadership within a broader context — not just the most recent conflict.
“It’s a question of the people themselves who have been living in the present and continuous control of Israeli Palestinian occupation for many years,” he said.
Abdulhadi also cautioned that people should focus less on Yahya Sinwar and more on the death and destruction in Gaza — and work to end it as soon as possible.
The post Who is Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and what does he want? appeared first on The World from PRX.
On Mother’s Day, hundreds of mothers searching for their missing children marched to the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico as they do every year.
Ana Enamorado was among them. She’s been looking for her only son, Oscar Antonio Lopez, since 2010. “Today is his birthday. He’s 34 years old,” she said.
Enamorado said her son left his home country of Honduras with the intention to reach the United States, but he got stuck in the Mexican state of Jalisco 14 years ago, and is nowhere to be found.His mother decided to leave everything in Honduras 12 years ago and move to Mexico to search for her son. She complains about the lack of effort by the authorities to help her figure out where her son is.
Ana Enamorado left her home country of Honduras 12 years ago to search for her only son, Oscar, who disappeared in the Mexican state of Jalisco in 2010. She became an activist in support of mothers of migrants who’ve gone missing in Mexico.Tibisay Zea/The WorldShe said she was shocked to learn that the bodies of three international tourists were found so quickly just days before the march, in a case that made international headlines. “So, is it because they are foreigners that their cases are more urgent?” she questioned, “I don’t get it.”
Another mother, Rosa Silva, said that she has looked for her daughter, Victoria Lizabeth Posada Silva, in mental health hospitals, police offices and prostitution houses across the country.
It’s not uncommon that women and girls who go missing become victims of sex trafficking.
Silva joined a collective of mothers from the central state of Mexico who are looking for their children in mass graves across the country. Carrying picks and shovels, they dig holes in sometimes remote places suggested by anonymous tips or social media messages.
More than 5,500 clandestine mass graves have been found in Mexico in the last two decades — many by families of the relatives who have disappeared.
The mother of Victoria Lizabeth Posada Silva has been looking for her daughter in prostitution houses across the country because, she says, many women and girls who go missing in Mexico end up as victims of sexual trafficking.Tibisay Zea/The World“Criminal groups often hide the bodies of their victims in clandestine graves and, in some cases, use them to dispose of the remains of those they have burned beyond recognition,” said Parker Asmann, an investigative journalist in Mexico who focuses on organized crime.
The search can be difficult, exhausting and dangerous. Several searching mothers, activists and journalists investigating the disappearance of people have been killed.
“The disappearances can be used to put pressure on the government or security forces to negotiate or act in a way that benefits organized crime,” Asmann added. Cartels often need the complicity of the authorities to be able to sustain their crime-related operations.
Relatives of the families showed banners and posters with the faces of the disappeared, pleading for any information about their fate.Tibisay Zea/The WorldUnlike previous administrations, the current government has publicly recognized the scale of the crisis and strengthened search and identification efforts.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO), launched the first National Registry of the Disappeared in 2018. It now contains over 116,000 reported cases of missing people. Over 70% of the cases happened in the last 10 years.
Violent crime increased significantly around 2006, when then-President Felipe Calderón launched a militarized “war on drugs.” The country started seeing gruesome crimes, including torture, decapitations and bodies hung from bridges. But disappearance can be the cruelest of all, Silva said.
“It deprives you from mourning a body. You don’t have answers or the simple certainty of death,”
Rosa Silva, mother of missing daughter, Victoria
“It’s an unimaginable pain and anguish. It deprives you from mourning a body. You don’t have answers or the simple certainty of death,” she said.
Looking for missing people is a monumental task, said Karla Quintana, former head of the government’s National Search Commission in Mexico, in a recent panel organized by Harvard University.
“There’s a lack of human and financial resources on the state and federal levels to respond to this crisis. The relatives are searching on their own,” she explained, because, in many parts of Mexico, authorities collude with the perpetrators of the disappearances.
Even when remains are found, the task of identifying the dead can be hard. “We have a lack of forensic staff. We don’t still don’t have enough anthropologists, archeologists and criminologists.”
In June of last year, AMLO announced a “census” to review the official total of disappearances, case by case. Critics say this was a tactic to manipulate numbers and present a fictitious decrease in those missing ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
The march concluded in Mexico’s National Palace, the official residency of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.Tibisay Zea/The WorldQuintana, of the National Search Commission, resigned last summer, amid the controversy, and she told the media that “the intention [of the census] is very clear and regrettable: It’s to reduce the number of disappeared people, mainly during this government.”
Quintana added that moves by Lopez Obrador, which include laying off a significant percent of the staff of the commission, would “reverse advances” made in the effort to track down the missing and bring perpetrators to justice. In a country where nearly all violent crimes go unsolved, the missing are a testament to the inability of the government to stop violence and deliver justice.
Related: 43 students from a rural Mexican college disappeared 7 years ago. This deep dive delves into what happened to them.
The post In Mexico, Mother’s Day is a sad reminder for the mothers of the disappeared appeared first on The World from PRX.
On Mother’s Day, hundreds of mothers searching for their missing children marched to the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico as they do every year.
Ana Enamorado was among them. She’s been looking for her only son, Oscar Antonio Lopez, since 2010. “Today is his birthday. He’s 34 years old,” she said.
Enamorado said her son left his home country of Honduras with the intention to reach the United States, but he got stuck in the Mexican state of Jalisco 14 years ago, and is nowhere to be found.His mother decided to leave everything in Honduras 12 years ago and move to Mexico to search for her son. She complains about the lack of effort by the authorities to help her figure out where her son is.
Ana Enamorado left her home country of Honduras 12 years ago to search for her only son, Oscar, who disappeared in the Mexican state of Jalisco in 2010. She became an activist in support of mothers of migrants who’ve gone missing in Mexico.Tibisay Zea/The WorldShe said she was shocked to learn that the bodies of three international tourists were found so quickly just days before the march, in a case that made international headlines. “So, is it because they are foreigners that their cases are more urgent?” she questioned, “I don’t get it.”
Another mother, Rosa Silva, said that she has looked for her daughter, Victoria Lizabeth Posada Silva, in mental health hospitals, police offices and prostitution houses across the country.
It’s not uncommon that women and girls who go missing become victims of sex trafficking.
Silva joined a collective of mothers from the central state of Mexico who are looking for their children in mass graves across the country. Carrying picks and shovels, they dig holes in sometimes remote places suggested by anonymous tips or social media messages.
More than 5,500 clandestine mass graves have been found in Mexico in the last two decades — many by families of the relatives who have disappeared.
The mother of Victoria Lizabeth Posada Silva has been looking for her daughter in prostitution houses across the country because, she says, many women and girls who go missing in Mexico end up as victims of sexual trafficking.Tibisay Zea/The World“Criminal groups often hide the bodies of their victims in clandestine graves and, in some cases, use them to dispose of the remains of those they have burned beyond recognition,” said Parker Asmann, an investigative journalist in Mexico who focuses on organized crime.
The search can be difficult, exhausting and dangerous. Several searching mothers, activists and journalists investigating the disappearance of people have been killed.
“The disappearances can be used to put pressure on the government or security forces to negotiate or act in a way that benefits organized crime,” Asmann added. Cartels often need the complicity of the authorities to be able to sustain their crime-related operations.
Relatives of the families showed banners and posters with the faces of the disappeared, pleading for any information about their fate.Tibisay Zea/The WorldUnlike previous administrations, the current government has publicly recognized the scale of the crisis and strengthened search and identification efforts.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO), launched the first National Registry of the Disappeared in 2018. It now contains over 116,000 reported cases of missing people. Over 70% of the cases happened in the last 10 years.
Violent crime increased significantly around 2006, when then-President Felipe Calderón launched a militarized “war on drugs.” The country started seeing gruesome crimes, including torture, decapitations and bodies hung from bridges. But disappearance can be the cruelest of all, Silva said.
“It deprives you from mourning a body. You don’t have answers or the simple certainty of death,”
Rosa Silva, mother of missing daughter, Victoria
“It’s an unimaginable pain and anguish. It deprives you from mourning a body. You don’t have answers or the simple certainty of death,” she said.
Looking for missing people is a monumental task, said Karla Quintana, former head of the government’s National Search Commission in Mexico, in a recent panel organized by Harvard University.
“There’s a lack of human and financial resources on the state and federal levels to respond to this crisis. The relatives are searching on their own,” she explained, because, in many parts of Mexico, authorities collude with the perpetrators of the disappearances.
Even when remains are found, the task of identifying the dead can be hard. “We have a lack of forensic staff. We don’t still don’t have enough anthropologists, archeologists and criminologists.”
In June of last year, AMLO announced a “census” to review the official total of disappearances, case by case. Critics say this was a tactic to manipulate numbers and present a fictitious decrease in those missing ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
The march concluded in Mexico’s National Palace, the official residency of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.Tibisay Zea/The WorldQuintana, of the National Search Commission, resigned last summer, amid the controversy, and she told the media that “the intention [of the census] is very clear and regrettable: It’s to reduce the number of disappeared people, mainly during this government.”
Quintana added that moves by Lopez Obrador, which include laying off a significant percent of the staff of the commission, would “reverse advances” made in the effort to track down the missing and bring perpetrators to justice. In a country where nearly all violent crimes go unsolved, the missing are a testament to the inability of the government to stop violence and deliver justice.
Related: 43 students from a rural Mexican college disappeared 7 years ago. This deep dive delves into what happened to them.
The post In Mexico, Mother’s Day is a sad reminder for the mothers of the disappeared appeared first on The World from PRX.
The cost of living is a huge issue in Germany right now, but one thing that’s pushing people over the edge — on social media, that is — is a popular street food: the döner kebab.
Döner has long been cherished in the country as a quick, cheap meal on the go. It’s sort of like a Turkish German sandwich, with seasoned meat (shaved off a vertical rotisserie) that is stuffed into a flatbread pocket along with vegetables and generous spoonfuls of spicy, creamy and garlicky sauces.
The price, however, has nearly doubled in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, and the phenomenon has even earned a nickname: “Dönerflation.” According to the food delivery service Lieferando, the average price of döner in 2024 ranges upward of $7 in major German cities, with the highest mean cost in Munich at $9.19.
“It’s very remarkable that I’m asked everywhere, mainly by young people, whether there shouldn’t be a price cap on döner,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a post on the social media app Instagram in March.
Customer Matthias Feldmeier, 35, enjoys a bite of chicken döner outside the Rollo Kebap & Burgerhaus in Munich, Germany, May 9, 2024. Feldmeier recalls buying a döner for under $3 when he was growing up.Joshua Coe/The WorldWhile Scholz said a price cap was not the way, Die Linke or “The Left” — the furthest-left party with seats in the German parliament — has proposed a government subsidy to reduce the cost to about $5.30 for a standard döner.
“The doner kebab has turned from a cheap hangover cure to a luxury item, and the young people can’t afford it anymore,” said Die Linke’s youth policy spokeswoman Kathrin Gebel.
Some takeaway shops in Munich indeed offer high-end döner, with one of the most expensive being the “From Istanbul to Tokyo” premium döner at Hans Kebab downtown with wagyu chuck short rib as the meat and costing a whopping $50.
But it’s still possible to find a more affordable kebab in the city.
Rollo Kebap & Burgerhaus, located outside of Munich’s historic city center on the southeast bank of the River Isar, offers a chicken döner in a fresh bread pocket for about $6.50.
Owner Hasan Taskan said business was tough during the pandemic, “but thank God, we have good customers and good quality.”
He said that he prides himself on the quality of the ingredients he uses, including the bread, which is served hot from the oven.
“Everything’s become more expensive,” Taskan said in German as he flattened out dough with a rolling pin. “The electricity is becoming more expensive, and the drinks. The food — meat and the vegetables — all that we purchase has gotten more expensive by almost 20[%], 30%.”
“At the moment, we’re not as expensive as others, but we also need to make decisions.”
Economist Simon Jäger at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said that while goods started to become more expensive in Germany during the pandemic, prices only rose further after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Germany, previously reliant on Russian gas, struggled to find an affordable alternative when the energy supply ceased to flow following the war in Ukraine, which had a big economic impact.
“As a consequence, energy prices in Germany completely skyrocketed and that led to a large bout of inflation and also depressed economic growth, in particular, in the energy intensive sectors,” Jäger explained. “Inflation was very high for a period of about two years, and wages did not keep up. So, German workers saw the largest drop in their purchasing power in the last 70 years as the value of their … nominal wage earnings, which essentially got eroded by inflation, did not increase.”
And that meant other prices went up too, including the cost of services and food such as döner. But opinions are mixed among those who eat döner on whether a government response is necessary.
“I think there’s a lot of issues in Germany that could also use price caps, for example, the housing market, rent, property,” said Maik Solbrig, who had a $7.50 veal döner outside Rollo Kebap & Burgerhaus.
Indeed, Munich is infamous for its housing crisis, boasting some of the most-expensive rent prices in the country.
“So, the idea is the right one,” Solbrig said. “Transferred to other areas of life, we could quickly make progress in Europe or Germany.”
On the other hand, customer Jürgen Kaps who finished a döner lunch with friends outside the kebab shop, called the idea of a price cap on the street food “hilarious.”
“That’s cheap populism, I’m sorry,” Kaps said. “How do you come up with this? Like, let’s keep beer and döner cheap, like ‘bread and games.’”
He was referencing an ancient Roman phrase used today to decry political policies meant to appease the masses and distract from other issues.
While Die Linke’s Gebel said she can understand why some might find a price cap on döner ridiculous, she’s happy to see the proposal spark conversation about the cost of food in the country.
“Our goal is, of course, to not only make the döner kebab cheaper, but all the other basic food items as well,” said the 27-year-old Gebel. “So, for me, a döner kebab is a basic food item. For other people, it might not be, which is why we need a price cap for basic food items in the four largest supermarket chains, and this basic food item price cap should not exceed … the food budget given to people dependent on social security benefits.”
As for the cost of döner going down, MIT economist Jäger is not convinced.
“What I think we might see is inflation stop, so the rate at which prices increase, that might go down and price increases might stop,” he said. “That prices will go down from here would be rather surprising to me.”
The post ‘Dönerflation’: Outcry in Germany over rising cost of döner kebab appeared first on The World from PRX.
The cost of living is a huge issue in Germany right now, but one thing that’s pushing people over the edge — on social media, that is — is a popular street food: the döner kebab.
Döner has long been cherished in the country as a quick, cheap meal on the go. It’s sort of like a Turkish German sandwich, with seasoned meat (shaved off a vertical rotisserie) that is stuffed into a flatbread pocket along with vegetables and generous spoonfuls of spicy, creamy and garlicky sauces.
The price, however, has nearly doubled in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, and the phenomenon has even earned a nickname: “Dönerflation.” According to the food delivery service Lieferando, the average price of döner in 2024 ranges upward of $7 in major German cities, with the highest mean cost in Munich at $9.19.
“It’s very remarkable that I’m asked everywhere, mainly by young people, whether there shouldn’t be a price cap on döner,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a post on the social media app Instagram in March.
Customer Matthias Feldmeier, 35, enjoys a bite of chicken döner outside the Rollo Kebap & Burgerhaus in Munich, Germany, May 9, 2024. Feldmeier recalls buying a döner for under $3 when he was growing up.Joshua Coe/The WorldWhile Scholz said a price cap was not the way, Die Linke or “The Left” — the furthest-left party with seats in the German parliament — has proposed a government subsidy to reduce the cost to about $5.30 for a standard döner.
“The doner kebab has turned from a cheap hangover cure to a luxury item, and the young people can’t afford it anymore,” said Die Linke’s youth policy spokeswoman Kathrin Gebel.
Some takeaway shops in Munich indeed offer high-end döner, with one of the most expensive being the “From Istanbul to Tokyo” premium döner at Hans Kebab downtown with wagyu chuck short rib as the meat and costing a whopping $50.
But it’s still possible to find a more affordable kebab in the city.
Rollo Kebap & Burgerhaus, located outside of Munich’s historic city center on the southeast bank of the River Isar, offers a chicken döner in a fresh bread pocket for about $6.50.
Owner Hasan Taskan said business was tough during the pandemic, “but thank God, we have good customers and good quality.”
He said that he prides himself on the quality of the ingredients he uses, including the bread, which is served hot from the oven.
“Everything’s become more expensive,” Taskan said in German as he flattened out dough with a rolling pin. “The electricity is becoming more expensive, and the drinks. The food — meat and the vegetables — all that we purchase has gotten more expensive by almost 20[%], 30%.”
“At the moment, we’re not as expensive as others, but we also need to make decisions.”
Economist Simon Jäger at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said that while goods started to become more expensive in Germany during the pandemic, prices only rose further after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Germany, previously reliant on Russian gas, struggled to find an affordable alternative when the energy supply ceased to flow following the war in Ukraine, which had a big economic impact.
“As a consequence, energy prices in Germany completely skyrocketed and that led to a large bout of inflation and also depressed economic growth, in particular, in the energy intensive sectors,” Jäger explained. “Inflation was very high for a period of about two years, and wages did not keep up. So, German workers saw the largest drop in their purchasing power in the last 70 years as the value of their … nominal wage earnings, which essentially got eroded by inflation, did not increase.”
And that meant other prices went up too, including the cost of services and food such as döner. But opinions are mixed among those who eat döner on whether a government response is necessary.
“I think there’s a lot of issues in Germany that could also use price caps, for example, the housing market, rent, property,” said Maik Solbrig, who had a $7.50 veal döner outside Rollo Kebap & Burgerhaus.
Indeed, Munich is infamous for its housing crisis, boasting some of the most-expensive rent prices in the country.
“So, the idea is the right one,” Solbrig said. “Transferred to other areas of life, we could quickly make progress in Europe or Germany.”
On the other hand, customer Jürgen Kaps who finished a döner lunch with friends outside the kebab shop, called the idea of a price cap on the street food “hilarious.”
“That’s cheap populism, I’m sorry,” Kaps said. “How do you come up with this? Like, let’s keep beer and döner cheap, like ‘bread and games.’”
He was referencing an ancient Roman phrase used today to decry political policies meant to appease the masses and distract from other issues.
While Die Linke’s Gebel said she can understand why some might find a price cap on döner ridiculous, she’s happy to see the proposal spark conversation about the cost of food in the country.
“Our goal is, of course, to not only make the döner kebab cheaper, but all the other basic food items as well,” said the 27-year-old Gebel. “So, for me, a döner kebab is a basic food item. For other people, it might not be, which is why we need a price cap for basic food items in the four largest supermarket chains, and this basic food item price cap should not exceed … the food budget given to people dependent on social security benefits.”
As for the cost of döner going down, MIT economist Jäger is not convinced.
“What I think we might see is inflation stop, so the rate at which prices increase, that might go down and price increases might stop,” he said. “That prices will go down from here would be rather surprising to me.”
The post ‘Dönerflation’: Outcry in Germany over rising cost of döner kebab appeared first on The World from PRX.
On a sunny summer day two years ago, a massive chunk of ice broke off from a glacier on a mountain in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.
An avalanche quickly raced down the mountain toward a group of hikers below, which one man caught on film.
The hikers braced themselves for impact as the cascade of snow and ice poured down the mountain toward them. Miraculously, the group survived with only several people receiving minor injuries.
The event highlighted the challenges facing the world’s glaciers. This year, the UN declared that climate change reached record levels in 2023. And glaciers, which hold most of the Earth’s freshwater, are melting at an unprecedented rate.
A mountain rises above a small lake in northern Tajikistan. Every summer a team of Swiss and international scientists travel to this rugged, mountainous country in Central Asia to research some of the world’s only glaciers that aren’t retreating because of climate change.Levi Bridges/The WorldBut some glaciers located in mountainous parts of Central Asia aren’t melting and, in some cases, are actually growing. This cold, arid region, known as the Third Pole, is one of the only places in the world outside the interior of Antarctica where ice has so far been relatively unaffected by the climatic changes associated with rising temperatures.
Even during the summer it remains so cold in parts of Tajikistan that ice on a glacier’s surface can turn into a gaseous state instead of melting through a process known as sublimation. That can cause spectacular ice formations on a glacier’s surface that look like inverted icicles or ice pyramids, according to Evan Miles, a glaciologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute who studies Tajikistan’s glaciers.
“I mean it’s a total pain to walk around on, but they look a little bit exotic even to a glaciologist,” Miles said.
Miles is the scientific coordinator for a team of Swiss and international scientists who have formed a research group known as the Pamir Project that hopes to discover what makes some of the region’s glaciers so unique. Each summer, they travel to isolated locations in Tajikistan’s mountains to study glaciers.
Scientists must spend days trekking up to altitudes sometimes as high as 15,000 feet just to visit their research sites, carrying in supplies and scientific equipment by donkey.
Miles said the remote locations the team visits in Tajikistan pose different challenges than research sites he has visited on Mount Everest where there are established trails and usually other people nearby.
At a workshop in rural Tajikistan locals learn about sustainable farming practices. Although Tajikistan is home to glaciers unaffected by climate change, many regions of the country are becoming more arid forcing locals to adapt to a life with less water.Levi Bridges/The World“In Tajikistan, there’s nobody — there’s no helicopter that’s going to come rescue you if something goes wrong,” he said.
But understanding these glaciers is worth the risk because millions of people in Asia depend on them as a water source.
Scientists believe these glaciers aren’t melting because water is evaporating from vast, irrigated farmland in nearby Pakistan, China and Uzbekistan. An increase in atmospheric moisture drives changes in weather patterns, so more snow gets dumped on Tajikistan’s glaciers and helps their size remain stable.
A small village in northern Tajikistan. Millions of people in Asia depend on the region’s high-mountain glaciers as a water source.Levi Bridges/The WorldThese mountains are just one of many unsolved mysteries glaciologists are working on. It can be difficult for scientists to predict how much ice most glaciers will lose — and when — because there are still basic unanswered questions, like how much snowfall many mountains get.
“How much snow is actually falling seems like such a fundamental thing but, generally speaking, we have no idea really everywhere in the world,” Miles said.
To answer questions about the future of glaciers, researchers are looking to the past. They are studying how glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age to shed light on what’s happening today.
But even though glaciers have retreated before throughout the Earth’s history — the same way most are melting now because of climate change — looking at the past has some limitations.
“The main difference with what’s happening today is how fast many glaciers are melting because we don’t have any record of such a sudden change,” said Guillaume Jouvet, a glaciologist and mathematician at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
A group of Tajik women meets to discuss ways their community can adapt to increasing droughts. Although Central Asia is home to some of the world’s only glaciers that aren’t melting, much of the region has already been severely affected by climate change.Levi Bridges/The WorldScientists who are part of the Pamir Project have also teamed up with historians and geographers who are searching for Soviet documents that contain earlier data about Tajikistan’s glaciers. Some members are also conducting oral histories with locals in Tajikistan’s mountains.
Sofia Gavrilova, a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Germany that’s helping with the initiative, met a Tajik schoolteacher as part of her oral history work who kept dated records of changes in the level of a local river.
“This is really very valuable, large-scale data that you cannot necessarily capture any other way,” Gavrilova said.
Satellites are now also gathering data about the Earth’s glaciers and scientists have begun using artificial intelligence to help process all the information.
The technology has become a useful asset that researchers believe can assist them in making scientific breakthroughs.
“AI can help us improve our projections about water resources and sea level rise [and that] can help local populations which are influenced by glaciers to adapt,” said Jordi Bolibar, a researcher at Grenoble Alpes University in France specializing in glaciology and computational geosciences.
A Tajik girl on a mountain road in northern Tajikistan. Scientists are racing to understand how the region’s glaciers and the water systems that depend on them will affect future generations as climate change makes the earth’s temperature rise.Levi Bridges/The WorldAlthough some of Tajikistan’s glaciers remain stable for the moment, scientists predict that they, too, will eventually start to melt and get smaller.
Researchers believe it will prove very difficult to stop that process after it starts.
“Let’s say that we actually manage to withdraw carbon from the atmosphere effectively by 2050, there’s still actually going to be quite some time, probably 20 to 30 years, that the glaciers will continue shrinking and losing mass,” said Miles, of the Pamir Project.
He stressed that every effort we make to stop global warming — even by lowering the Earth’s temperature by just a tenth of a degree — can help save the world’s glaciers in the long run.
Correction: The radio version of this story describes a video shot by scientists of a stream flowing out of the base of a glacier. The stream was actually flowing on top of the glacier’s surface.
The post Scientists study why some of Central Asia’s glaciers are resilient to climate change appeared first on The World from PRX.
On a sunny summer day two years ago, a massive chunk of ice broke off from a glacier on a mountain in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.
An avalanche quickly raced down the mountain toward a group of hikers below, which one man caught on film.
The hikers braced themselves for impact as the cascade of snow and ice poured down the mountain toward them. Miraculously, the group survived with only several people receiving minor injuries.
The event highlighted the challenges facing the world’s glaciers. This year, the UN declared that climate change reached record levels in 2023. And glaciers, which hold most of the Earth’s freshwater, are melting at an unprecedented rate.
A mountain rises above a small lake in northern Tajikistan. Every summer a team of Swiss and international scientists travel to this rugged, mountainous country in Central Asia to research some of the world’s only glaciers that aren’t retreating because of climate change.Levi Bridges/The WorldBut some glaciers located in mountainous parts of Central Asia aren’t melting and, in some cases, are actually growing. This cold, arid region, known as the Third Pole, is one of the only places in the world outside the interior of Antarctica where ice has so far been relatively unaffected by the climatic changes associated with rising temperatures.
Even during the summer it remains so cold in parts of Tajikistan that ice on a glacier’s surface can turn into a gaseous state instead of melting through a process known as sublimation. That can cause spectacular ice formations on a glacier’s surface that look like inverted icicles or ice pyramids, according to Evan Miles, a glaciologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute who studies Tajikistan’s glaciers.
“I mean it’s a total pain to walk around on, but they look a little bit exotic even to a glaciologist,” Miles said.
Miles is the scientific coordinator for a team of Swiss and international scientists who have formed a research group known as the Pamir Project that hopes to discover what makes some of the region’s glaciers so unique. Each summer, they travel to isolated locations in Tajikistan’s mountains to study glaciers.
Scientists must spend days trekking up to altitudes sometimes as high as 15,000 feet just to visit their research sites, carrying in supplies and scientific equipment by donkey.
Miles said the remote locations the team visits in Tajikistan pose different challenges than research sites he has visited on Mount Everest where there are established trails and usually other people nearby.
At a workshop in rural Tajikistan locals learn about sustainable farming practices. Although Tajikistan is home to glaciers unaffected by climate change, many regions of the country are becoming more arid forcing locals to adapt to a life with less water.Levi Bridges/The World“In Tajikistan, there’s nobody — there’s no helicopter that’s going to come rescue you if something goes wrong,” he said.
But understanding these glaciers is worth the risk because millions of people in Asia depend on them as a water source.
Scientists believe these glaciers aren’t melting because water is evaporating from vast, irrigated farmland in nearby Pakistan, China and Uzbekistan. An increase in atmospheric moisture drives changes in weather patterns, so more snow gets dumped on Tajikistan’s glaciers and helps their size remain stable.
A small village in northern Tajikistan. Millions of people in Asia depend on the region’s high-mountain glaciers as a water source.Levi Bridges/The WorldThese mountains are just one of many unsolved mysteries glaciologists are working on. It can be difficult for scientists to predict how much ice most glaciers will lose — and when — because there are still basic unanswered questions, like how much snowfall many mountains get.
“How much snow is actually falling seems like such a fundamental thing but, generally speaking, we have no idea really everywhere in the world,” Miles said.
To answer questions about the future of glaciers, researchers are looking to the past. They are studying how glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age to shed light on what’s happening today.
But even though glaciers have retreated before throughout the Earth’s history — the same way most are melting now because of climate change — looking at the past has some limitations.
“The main difference with what’s happening today is how fast many glaciers are melting because we don’t have any record of such a sudden change,” said Guillaume Jouvet, a glaciologist and mathematician at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
A group of Tajik women meets to discuss ways their community can adapt to increasing droughts. Although Central Asia is home to some of the world’s only glaciers that aren’t melting, much of the region has already been severely affected by climate change.Levi Bridges/The WorldScientists who are part of the Pamir Project have also teamed up with historians and geographers who are searching for Soviet documents that contain earlier data about Tajikistan’s glaciers. Some members are also conducting oral histories with locals in Tajikistan’s mountains.
Sofia Gavrilova, a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Germany that’s helping with the initiative, met a Tajik schoolteacher as part of her oral history work who kept dated records of changes in the level of a local river.
“This is really very valuable, large-scale data that you cannot necessarily capture any other way,” Gavrilova said.
Satellites are now also gathering data about the Earth’s glaciers and scientists have begun using artificial intelligence to help process all the information.
The technology has become a useful asset that researchers believe can assist them in making scientific breakthroughs.
“AI can help us improve our projections about water resources and sea level rise [and that] can help local populations which are influenced by glaciers to adapt,” said Jordi Bolibar, a researcher at Grenoble Alpes University in France specializing in glaciology and computational geosciences.
A Tajik girl on a mountain road in northern Tajikistan. Scientists are racing to understand how the region’s glaciers and the water systems that depend on them will affect future generations as climate change makes the earth’s temperature rise.Levi Bridges/The WorldAlthough some of Tajikistan’s glaciers remain stable for the moment, scientists predict that they, too, will eventually start to melt and get smaller.
Researchers believe it will prove very difficult to stop that process after it starts.
“Let’s say that we actually manage to withdraw carbon from the atmosphere effectively by 2050, there’s still actually going to be quite some time, probably 20 to 30 years, that the glaciers will continue shrinking and losing mass,” said Miles, of the Pamir Project.
He stressed that every effort we make to stop global warming — even by lowering the Earth’s temperature by just a tenth of a degree — can help save the world’s glaciers in the long run.
Correction: The radio version of this story describes a video shot by scientists of a stream flowing out of the base of a glacier. The stream was actually flowing on top of the glacier’s surface.
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Picasso, Gaugin, Matisse — they’re all household names in the global art world. Less well-known is that their art took inspiration from traditional African sculpture.
Indeed, for the past 100 years, artwork from African artists has largely been overlooked and undervalued on the international modern and contemporary art scene.
“We never talked about Africa in the history of global art,” said Hannah O’Leary, a senior director at the Sotheby’s auction house in London who also heads their Modern and Contemporary African Art department.
“It was quite apparent when I started working in the auction world or in the art market, that it was very hard to access contemporary art from Africa — to buy it, to view it,” she said.
That’s changing though.
A photograph by Laetitia Ky, from Ivory Coast.Courtesy of Laetitia KyAt the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in Manhattan recently, well-dressed art lovers took in works of African artists from all over the world.
“We believe that the focus is on Africa right now. Africa is the future and we are happy to find a platform for African artists’ voices to be heard and to be seen,” said Favor Ritaro of the Kó Gallery in Lagos, Nigeria.
The numbers back that up. While the global art market declined by nearly 18% last year, the African modern and contemporary art market has been resilient.
“Last year, we got $79.8 million in auction sales across the houses. That was the second-highest sales total that the African contemporary and modern art market has seen,” said Lindsay Dewar, of ArtTactic, an art market analysis firm.
A lot of this has been driven by young African artists and African women artists, who in 2023 made up more than half of sales.
Dewar said art institutions and collectors are trying to diversify their collections, in part driven by recent social movements like Black Lives Matter.
“They don’t just want the, you know, pale, male and stale artists that we saw dominate over the last however many hundred years,” Dewar said.
“They’re looking outwards and they’re finding that there is this whole amazing visual language from different artists.”
COVID-19 also had a large impact on this market, said O’Leary of Sothebys.
“During that time, during 2020 to 2022, we saw phenomenal growth in the interest, and sales for contemporary African art. And I believe that online presence was a huge part of that,” she explained, noting how as art institutions closed down, collectors turned to social media platforms like Instagram to explore and connect with galleries across Africa.
Still, despite the growing interest, O’Leary estimates African modern and contemporary art only makes up about 2% to 3% of the global market despite Africa being on its way to representing about a quarter of the world population by 2050.
O’Leary said that ultimately there needs to be more investment in local art infrastructure in Africa.
“It all starts with the ecosystem in Africa,” she said.
“How does a young person with an artistic talent and need for expression come to the attention of NPR or MoMA [The Museum of Contemporary Art] curators?”
The answer? More galleries, museums and art residences.
“Art representation is such a huge deal but there are not enough spaces to do that,” said Ugandan artist and gallerist Collin Sekajugo, who opened Amasaka Gallery in Masaka, Uganda in 2020.
While coming to international art fairs like 1-54 often has enormous financial barriers, he said it’s worth it to connect local artists with the wider art world.
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When Eva Seydou first came to the United States as an international student two years ago, she was ecstatic. But the novelty wore off and homesickness set in.
It wasn’t gun violence or racism — her initial concerns — that worried her most. It was the unexpected cultural nuances in the US that made the adjustment hard.
Back home in Mauritania, West Africa, it was rude to look people in the eye, but in the US, people expected it. American culture valued independence over community, which can be lonely, she said. English idioms also took extra effort to understand.
When a dental emergency depleted her savings account, she felt defeated: “I just went back to my room asking why am I here? I should go back home.”
That’s when she connected with Emmanuel, who serves as a campus chaplain at Old Dominion University, in Virginia, where Seydou studies. (Emmanuel asked to use his first name only due to privacy concerns around travel visas.)
After meeting with Emmanuel, Seydou said she realized that her experience was a fairly common one for international students. In fact, it’s expected.
“You just go through that roller coaster of sadness, and there’s just no shortcut through it,” said Emmanuel, who also helps host international student programs. “But you don’t have to go through it alone.”
“You just go through that roller coaster of sadness and there’s just no shortcut through it. But you don’t have to go through it alone.”
Emmanuel, campus chaplain, Old Dominion University, Virginia
International students gather for a meal. It’s these types of social connections that support students, especially those that come from cultures that value community over the individual. Courtesy of EmmanuelThe number of international students in the US is on the rise, topping over a million students in recent years. In part, it’s been a financial strategy for universities to recruit students from abroad who pay full tuition. It’s also a win for international students who may not have access to resources and education in their home countries.
But adjustment to life in the US can be stressful, which in turn, can catalyze the onset of mental health challenges. And for many international students, seeking mental health care can carry stigma whereas spiritual care is more culturally acceptable.
That’s how university chaplains like Emmanuel have become de facto counselors and mental health advocates on campuses. Coming from Cameroon, Emmanuel knows personally what the adjustment experience is like for internationals. But when necessary, he said, chaplains will guide students to seek professional help through campus counseling services.
Rather than sitting in a chapel or a mosque or a temple, the chaplain’s “office” tends to be wherever students need support.
“My office can be at Panera, where I’m just having a meal with a student. My office can be at a cellphone store, where I’m helping a student.”
Chaplains foster social connections to help international students adjust to life in the US. Courtesy of EmmanuelEmmanuel also opens up his home to students, inviting them to join his family for dinner or watch soccer games.
Plus, he turns to social media for his work. In the WhatsApp group he created, he sees who needs a roommate or help moving furniture, finding a lawyer to assist with a visa, or a family to share a holiday meal when campus grows quiet during winter break.
He also gives advice. For example, professors might yield authority in other countries, but Emmanuel tells international students that in the US, students are expected to raise their hands and speak their minds.
“I feel like I have an older brother, like there’s this person I can count on,” Seydou said about Emmanuel’s role in her life. “I can just text about anything at all [and] he will be there to assist me.”
“I feel like I have an older brother, like there’s this person I can count on.”
Eva Seydou, student from Mauritania at Old Dominion University, Virginia
These social connections can be especially pivotal for students who come from cultures that place a high value on community.
Seydou, who is Muslim, said she has not always felt understood on campus — the questions she has received from classmates amount to Islamophobia, at times.
“There are people asking you about Taliban, Afghanistan, but it feels like more of an attack than actually curiosity,” she said.
Emmanuel, who is Christian, noted that he cares for students regardless of religious affiliation. His goal is to make students like Seydou feel a sense of belonging on campus.
“There is a Bible reference that says God has welcomed us,” he said. “We want to welcome others because he has provided so much for us and cared for us unconditionally.”
For some international students, crisis can strike back home. They might wake up to headlines of an earthquake, wildfire or political violence, and to these students, the news is personal.
Anzhelika Gyulumyan, from Armenia, was in the US when she heard about political conflict back home, where her family still lives. Over 120,000 Armenians were forced to leave their homes, becoming refugees in a single day, she said.
Her friends posted about the crisis on social media, made donations and signed petitions to show support but Gyulumyan said she still felt overwhelmed.
When Emmanuel and other campus chaplains reached out to Gyulumyan, an Armenian Christian, they sat with her and prayed for her. They helped her grieve the home she knew was no longer there.
“You’re just heartbroken, there’s nothing worse probably than loss of homeland,” Gyulumyan said. “Chaplains are just people who want to walk the walk with you.”
“Chaplains are just people who want to walk the walk with you.”
Anzhelika Gyulumyan, student from Armenia at Old Dominion University, Virginia
Campus chaplains help to celebrate the graduation of some international students whose families may not be able to travel from abroad to the US, bringing flowers, taking photos, and buying dinner in their stead. Courtesy of Anzhelika GyulumyanEventually, international students adjust to the cultural nuances in the US that were once stressful.
And when it’s time to graduate, campus chaplains often come with flowers, take photos for international students because it can be difficult for some families to travel the distance from abroad.
Students like Seydou and Gyulumyan then wonder where to call home next. Some think about visas and green cards — and perhaps taking their first steps toward becoming American.
Both said their experiences as students in the US — surrounded by diverse beliefs — helped them to articulate their own.
“I was able to understand which parts of my identity I am open to adjusting to, and which parts I want to keep my own,” Gyulumyan said.
Seydou has noticed her political views have begun to differ from those of her parents’ back in Mauritania.
“It helps you actually realize that there’s a lot more in this world than you actually know.”
This project was supported by a grant from the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab at Brandeis University in partnership with Templeton Religion Trust.
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In the district of Xochimilco, south of Mexico City, resident Rosa Contreras is used to waking up in the middle of the night to collect water in multiple plastic containers.
She and her neighbors only get running water a few days a week during the wee hours of the morning, “and it’s dirty water,” she said. “We can’t drink, cook or wash our clothes with this because it smells like sewage.”
People in Contreras’ building are accustomed to skipping showers, reusing clothes multiple times and recycling water, she said.
Rosa Contreras, a Mexico City resident, has to wake up early in the morning to fill plastic containers with water. She uses that water to drink, cook and wash her clothes. But she says the water is dirty and smells like sewage. Mexico City has been experiencing a water crisis that only allows people like Contreras and her neighbors to get running water a few days a week.Tibisay Zea/The WorldIn Mexico City, water shortages are becoming a way of life.
After two consecutive years of high temperatures and low rainfall, the reservoirs and underground wells that supply the city with water are drying up, and only a fraction of the city’s 22 million residents have a continuous supply of water throughout the year.
Government agencies distribute pipes to some districts in the city, but in Contreras’ neighborhood, that’s not the case. For those who can afford it, the best solution is to pay for private delivery of water. But for the poorest residents, it’s not uncommon to walk several miles to refill their buckets.
The causesRafael Carmona, head of the water authority in Mexico City (Sacmex), blamed climate change for water scarcity in a recent interview with a local TV station. “Nature is bringing scenarios we weren’t used to dealing with,” he said, referring to heat and drought.
But environmental factors alone don’t explain the scale of the current water crisis in Mexico’s capital, according to Luis Zambrano, a professor of urban ecosystems at the National Autonomous University (UNAM). He said chaotic urban growth, leaking infrastructure and the overuse of water by large companies have also contributed to the problem.
Zambrano added that the city has a history of bad water management that goes back to colonial times.
Luis Zambrano, professor of urban ecosystems at the National Autonomous University, points to one of the latest rivers put into pipelines, the Magdalena River in Coyoacan, Mexico City. He says chaotic urban growth, leaking infrastructure and the overuse of water by large companies have also contributed to the water shortage problem.Tibisay Zea/The WorldParadoxically, what is now the historic center of Mexico City used to be an island surrounded by lakes. In the 14th century, the Aztecs founded a floating metropolis known as Tenochtitlan and became masters of hydraulic engineering — building sophisticated navigation channels, canals, dikes, aqueducts and floating vegetable gardens.
But centuries later, Spanish colonizers destroyed many Indigenous hydraulic works and created a large system to drain the water from the lakes to transform Tenochtitlan into a European-like capital built on firm terrain.
In the 1950s and 1960s, city leaders decided to pipe water from the city’s main rivers and hide them under asphalt to make space for roads and urban construction. Because of this, rain storm water could not permeate the concrete-covered city and refill the aquifers.
“Mexicans wanted to copy the economic expansion and urban development that happened in the US, so we thought that it was better to have rivers of cars instead of rivers of water,” Zambrano explained.
Ubicación de las líneas del metro de la CDMX respecto al Lago de Texcoco. #CiudadDeMéxico #UNAM #Pumagua pic.twitter.com/J2aInDOQPW
— PUMAGUA (@PUMAGUA) September 8, 2022
Past and present. A map of Mexico City’s subway system on top of a map of the city in the 15th century. Contamination and higher temperatures were also unintended consequences of this policy, Zambrano added, “because it reduced the green areas that filter the air, to make space for more pollutants.”
Women are in chargeIn some of the poorest suburbs, people haven’t seen water running from the tap in years. In the city of Ecatepec, in the central state of Mexico, resident Dinorah Ballesta said she and her two daughters alternately pick up 200 liters of water from the nearest source, located more than four miles away.
“It’s a full-day job, and we’ve been doing it several times a week for four years,” Ballesta said.
Especially in low-resourced houses, a lot of the hands-on labor involving water collection, management and storage are performed by women and girls, said Elizabeth Roberts, a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan who has spent time in Mexico City studying the water crisis.
“It has a big impact on their lives,” she added. “If you have to wake up in the wee hours of the morning every day, that will have an impact on your health. If you have to dedicate a big chunk of your week to collecting water, that is time you are not using to perform a paid job or go to school.”
Lack of trustPublic data about the water crisis is scarce, and it represents an added challenge to fixing Mexico City’s water crisis, said Enrique Lomnitz, a Mexican sustainable industrial engineer and director of the nonprofit Isla Urbana.
“We don’t find any information about water quality, leaking pipelines or water concessions made to large companies,” he said, “and we need it, not only to address the problem, but also to recover trust in our public institutions.”
An aerial view of Villa Victoria Dam, the main water supply for Mexico City residents, on the outskirts of Toluca, Mexico, April 22, 2021. Drought conditions now cover 85% of Mexico, and in areas around Mexico City and Michoacán, the problem has gotten so bad that lakes and reservoirs are drying up.Fernando Llano/APSome people are fed up with Sacmex’s — Mexico City’s water authority — response.
“They told us to take fewer and shorter showers and that climate change is the main cause of the problem, but what are they doing to fix the crisis in the long term? What investments are they making?” Contreras questioned.
Experts consulted said it’s unlikely that the city will reach the critical point at which the water supply is completely depleted. Even if the drought persists and the reservoirs dry up, the city still has enough underground water reserves. But everyone agrees that a long-term solution is urgently needed.
Water shortages and contamination are also affecting upscale neighborhoods.
In recent weeks, residents in the Benito Juarez borough, primarily populated by the middle and upper-middle classes, started to notice that the water running from the tap smelled “like gasoline.” Resident Cristina Montemayor said she and her neighbors had a hard time getting the attention of the authorities, who initially dismissed their claims.
After days of protests, city leaders agreed to take and examine water samples in the district, but they are reluctant to publish the results, alleging “they could be misinterpreted.”
Neighbors then ordered an independent water test, which showed unusually high levels of chloroform, benzene and other chemicals present in lubricants that can be harmful to human health.
Shepherds walk with their flock along the banks of the Villa Victoria Dam, the main water supply for Mexico City residents, on the outskirts of Toluca, Mexico, April 22, 2021. Drought conditions now cover 85% of Mexico, and in areas around Mexico City and Michoacán, the problem has gotten so bad that lakes and reservoirs are drying up.Fernando Llano/APDespite the root cause of the contamination remaining unknown, last week a Sacmex employee told the neighbors in a community meeting that the problem was fixed.
Montemayor seems skeptical.
“Water authorities have dismissed our claims, lied to us, and now they want our trust,” she told The World. “The reality here is that using this water is an act of faith.”
A group of 350 residents affected by water contamination in the Benito Juárez borough filed a lawsuit in court to demand payment of compensation to the Government of Mexico City because of the mismanagement of the crisis.
A representative of Sacmex declined to make any comments before Mexico’s general elections, scheduled for June 2.
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On a recent morning in Abuja, endless rows of cars and trucks dotted the roads as drivers waited for a chance to fill up.
An ongoing fuel scarcity problem in Nigeria has frustrated drivers like Chris Nwagboso.
“Without fuel, I can’t work. And if I don’t work, what will my family eat? My family depends on me,” said Nwagboso, who provides for his wife, their two children, his mother and younger brother.
He said the fuel shortage has raised its price, which means that other household needs are also more expensive as sellers adjust their rates.
Fuel stations in Lagos are chaotic scenes as scores scramble to buy the essential commodity.
Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldThe recent shortages have been attributed to a supply problem at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited. Nigeria produces about 1.5 million barrels of oil a day, but the West African nation depends heavily on imported fuel because it lacks the capacity to refine its oil.
In January, the largest oil refinery in Africa built at a cost of $20 billion opened here in Lagos with hopes of increasing refining capacity. But this privately owned facility currently only produces diesel and aviation fuel.
Basic goods and services in Nigeria have gotten four times more expensive largely due to the fuel shortages.
At Tejuosho Market in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, frustration and anger have set in at the pump.
In line, 68-year-old Charles Omezerika held a yellow gallon jug, sweat trickling down his cheeks. He said he had been in line for hours, but people were cutting in front of him.
“I’ve seen many crises in my lifetime,” he said, “but this … this is too much. It’s like we’re back in the olden days, queuing for rations.”
Lagos is notorious for its traffic congestion even under normal circumstances, but the fuel shortages have led to major gridlock, disrupting the normal flow of people and goods across the megacity of nearly 15.5 million people.
Lagos is already notorious for its traffic congestion even under normal circumstances. Fuel shortages exacerbate the situation.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldBlack market sellers have popped up everywhere on busy roads, taking advantage of the situation by selling petrol for as much as $8 per gallon — more than double the actual price.
Black market sellers take advantage of fuel shortages to sell at exorbitant prices on busy roads in Lagos.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldThis compels some cab drivers to hike their fares, which can sometimes result in arguments with passengers.
“I’ve been taking this route for years, and suddenly he wants to increase the fare? No. I won’t agree. I won’t agree,” trader Folasade Busari said.
Jimoh Olatunji, a commercial bus driver, said he can hardly get by now on his earnings.
“Last year, by this time, I was making a lot of money. But now, all my sales go into buying fuel. I am struggling to feed my family,” he said. He worries that he might lose the bus he drives because he can’t meet the daily targets set by the bus owner.
Jimoh Olatunji, a commercial bus driver in Lagos, said fuel shortages are adversely affecting his sales.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldEconomic reformsWhen President Bola Tinubu took office last May, he implemented a raft of reforms to set Nigeria on a pathway to financial growth, including the removal of fuel subsidies amounting to about $10 billion in 2022.
The aim was to deregulate the oil sector by removing these subsidies. But Africa’s largest oil producer is now grappling with one of its worst economic crises in years.
A recent forecast by the International Monetary Fund predicts Nigeria’s fall from its 2022 position as Africa’s largest economy to fourth place this year. According to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, Nigeria’s gross domestic product is estimated at $253 billion this year — placing it behind Algeria, Egypt and South Africa.
Tinubu justified the reforms as a “necessary action” to avoid bankruptcy when he spoke recently at the World Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia.
Devaluation of the local currency, the naira, has also led to a cost of living crisis across Nigeria.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldBut Abuja-based economist Joel Haruna said the president needs to reconsider his decision.
“I don’t think pulling the plug on the energy subsidy is in the best interest of the nation,” Haruna said. “The subsidies were a crucial safety net for low-income Nigerians. And that’s why now we are seeing that the poor are the ones bearing the biggest brunt of the current challenges.”
Roughly 40% of Nigeria’s 220 million people live below the poverty line and increased living expenses are pushing more people into poverty.
Ongoing conflict in the northeast of Nigeria has also led to food shortages.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldThe devaluation of the local currency, the naira, is also making an impact on the lives of everyday Nigerians. Over the last year the Tinubu administration implemented a free-float for the naira, removing the central bank’s control over the exchange rate.
This has led to a drastic decline in its value. Nigerians are now seeing a surge in inflation that has led to significantly higher interest rates.
“When you have a rate today, tomorrow the rate is going up, then tomorrow is going down, it makes it difficult for people to plan,” Haruna said. “It makes it difficult for companies to plan and it makes it difficult for even the government to plan,” he added.
Devaluation of the local currency, the naira, has also led to a cost of living crisis across Nigeria.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The WorldHaruna said the government must prioritize stabilizing and growing the economy by focusing on increasing exports, reducing imports and boosting domestic production — especially food.
“This way, we will not only improve the country’s trade balance but also enhance food security and our economic resilience,” he said.
‘Prices have skyrocketed’Amid the loud rumble of generators in the Surulere neighborhood in Lagos, Joseph Sanwah laid out dozens of catfish covered in spicy red-hot chili pepper sauce on a grill.
Sanwah has been selling grilled catfish for three years. He said the increased cost of fuel to power his generator has made business more difficult.
Just a year ago, he used to sell a catfish for 2,000 naira, or about $1.46. Now, he sells one for about $4. He said it’s because he buys his catfish from farmers who use the circulatory system of raising the catfish, which requires costly fuel 24 hours a day.
Joseph Sanwah sells grilled catfish in Lagos. He said the fuel scarcity in Nigeria has shot up the price of fresh catfish.Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World“One fresh catfish used to be 1,200 naira from the market [.85] but now it is 3,000 naira [$2.13]. So the fresh catfish prices have skyrocketed and it is cutting into my profits,” he said.
Most of his customers can no longer afford his catfish.
“But it is not our fault,” he said.
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At the Luminous Stars center in Baghdad, families in need arrive every month to collect financial assistance.
While they’re there, mental health care workers take the opportunity to assess the children, many of whom have been traumatized by decades of war in the country — and have suffered the loss of one or both parents.
“Children who come to Luminous Stars, they are basically given a second chance at life,” said Kawther Hamed, a volunteer doctor at the center, in a video posted online. “These children, generally, if you’re in a state where you are quite traumatized or affected to a severe degree by the circumstances that you are in, you may be neglected, you may be overlooked by society just because it’s too complex to deal with.”
According to a 2021 report by the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, there are 5 million orphaned children in the country. That number includes those who have lost only one parent, usually the father.
And while rebuilding efforts in the country often focus on housing and food, mental health is often overlooked, especially for children — one of the most-vulnerable segments of the population.
Luminous Stars — known locally as Anjum Zahira — is hoping to fill some gaps through its mental health rehabilitation center, which serves around 3,000 orphaned youth.
The center falls under the larger umbrella of the Al-Ayn Social Care Foundation, which was founded in Iraq in 2006 — several years after the US-led invasion of the country. Al-Ayn helps orphaned children and displaced families, and it expanded after the onslaught of ISIS, which left many more children orphaned.
“The idea of starting a rehabilitation center began in 2014 after one of the female orphans died by suicide.”
Haidar Mezhar Khalaf, psychological practitioner, Luminous Stars
Haidar Mezhar Khalaf, a psychological practitioner at Luminous Stars, said that “the idea of starting a rehabilitation center began in 2014 after one of the female orphans died by suicide.”
The incident highlighted the urgency of addressing the psychological needs of the children, he said.
The Luminous Stars center in Baghdad, Aug. 28, 2023.Sara Hassan/The World“So, we started using cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT] and launched a medical program under the supervision of Dr. Saleh Dhumad based in London.”
Due to the sensitive nature of protecting the privacy of the children and the families seeking assistance, The World was not able to speak to the center’s clientele directly.
A holistic approachThe observations to assess the children usually happen at the soft play areas, which are colorful indoor playgrounds designed with soft and padded materials. Initial assessments are done while the kids are playing, so that they don’t feel stigmatized or like they are being evaluated at a hospital.
“There is a psychological researcher who stays with them in the room to educate people on how to recognize if their kids need psychological help,” Khalaf said. “The same person also observes the kids while they are playing to see which children are isolating themselves or being aggressive. We then send them over to the rehabilitation center.”
Ali Hassanali, executive director of Al-Ayn USA based in New York, explains in an online video that their setup is about protecting a child’s dignity, to “not make him or her feel vulnerable, that they are being judged, and give them a sense of belonging, that they’re just here to play.”
The layout, he goes on to say, is deliberate; some areas are high or low, or lit or dark.
“You’ll notice towards the back there is no lighting there, right? So, the idea here is to evaluate, are they afraid of the dark maybe? And so, many other psychological evaluations happen in order to find out exactly what that child is suffering through, so that we can essentially provide them the targeted services that they need.”
Assessments usually take place at soft play areas while the children are playing so they don’t feel stigmatized. Screenshot of Al-Ayn Social Care Foundation video.Courtesy of Al-Ayn Social Care FoundationMelad Ali is another psychological practitioner at the Baghdad center and said that they mostly focus on the children, but taking a holistic approach, they also provide support for the mothers.
“Most of these families live with other relatives who sometimes interfere when it comes to raising the kids,” she said. “They also blame the mothers and that can lead to them taking out their frustrations on the children.”
The Luminous Stars centers, known locally as Anjum Zahira, provide mental health rehabilitation services for orphaned children across Iraq.Courtesy of Al-Ayn Social Care FoundationOne thing the center is trying to do is break stereotypes and taboos around seeking care for mental health. Ali said that the families who come to Luminous Stars know they are in a safe space and are willing to accept the help.
The center also offers vocational training to help children transition into adulthood when they’re older — including lessons in hairdressing, cellphone repair, IT skills and catering, among many other skills — that can help them earn a decent living later.
The Luminous Stars center in Baghdad, Iraq, provides vocational training for orphaned children, including lessons in hairdressing, cellphone repair, IT skills and catering, among many other skills.Courtesy of Al-Ayn Social Care FoundationExpanding servicesThe Al-Ayn foundation has offices around the world to support its efforts on the ground.
It has expanded its offices to Europe, the US and Australia, allowing it to tap into funding from Iraqis and other Arabs and Muslims living abroad.
Children can take part in the various vocational training services provided by the Luminous Stars centers.Courtesy of Al-Ayn Social Care FoundationCurrently, the Luminous Stars center in Baghdad is the one that is fully operational, but there are two others operating at satellite locations, and there are plans to create at least 12 more centers across the country.
There are plans to build at least 12 more Luminous Stars centers across Iraq.Courtesy of Al-Ayn Social Care FoundationHassanali from the New York office said that they’ve also amended some of their language to refer to the kids as “orphaned children” instead of “orphans,” as a reminder that they are not a product of their circumstances.
“We want to make sure that whatever trauma, whatever difficulty that the child went through in the past, to have it never play a part in dictating the child’s future.”
Enas Razak Ibrahim contributed to this report.
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Tanks were seen driving into a deserted terminal on the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Monday, according to a video released by the Israel Defense Forces.
The Israeli military seized control of the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip late Monday night. Earlier that afternoon, Hamas leaders said they were willing to agree to a ceasefire and a hostage-prisoner exchange.
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike east of Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 6, 2024.Ismael Abu Dayyah/AP On Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the offer from Hamas was meant to “disrupt” the Israeli military’s advance into Rafah.
“This did not happen,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant, who visited troops near the Gaza border on Tuesday, said IDF operations in Rafah, “will not stop until Hamas is eliminated in the area or the first hostage returns to Israel.”
Israeli soldiers are seen near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Tuesday, May 7, 2024.Tsafrir Abayov/APA voice on Israeli radio declared on Monday, “the Rafah crossing is in our hands,” an historic reference to 1967, when the IDF took control of the Temple Mount holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem.
“I’m not sure it’s a smart move to take [responsibility of] the crossing,” said Doron Avital, a former IDF special forces commander. “You can’t blame [anybody] if something doesn’t work in terms of humanitarian aid.”
Avital said the IDF appears to be prepared to carry out a major offensive in Rafah — but this might not be the plan. So far, the operation has been limited, and it could be a way to put more pressure on Hamas to free the remaining hostages.
After weeks of pulling its forces out of most of Gaza, Avital said the IDF is now in a risky position, and “Bibi” Netanyahu’s talk of a “total victory” in this war is unrealistic.
“You don’t win a war by killing all your enemy soldiers … because, you know, Hamas operates guerrilla warfare in places that we’ve been through — in the center and in the north … But it’s not like this is the end limit — [that] this is the holy grail of the whole campaign, and everything ends,” Avital said.
For many Palestinians in Gaza, the end of this war cannot come soon enough.
A Palestinian doctor at a hospital in Rafah told the New York Times that 27 bodies were brought there overnight, and over 150 people were injured.
Mohammad Abu Amra told the Associated Press that he lost his wife, brother, sister and niece who were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
“We did nothing,” Amra said. “We were sleeping peacefully. We don’t have wanted people. We don’t have Hamas. The house was turned upside down.”
Palestinians flee from the eastern side of the southern Gaza city of Rafah after the Israeli army orders them to evacuate ahead of a military operation, in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 6, 2024. The order affects tens of thousands of people and could signal a broader invasion of Rafah, which Israel has identified as Hamas’ last major stronghold after seven months of war. Ismael Abu Dayyah/APIn Israel, the top concern for many people is the fate of the remaining hostages who have been held in Gaza now for 214 days.
Protests led by relatives of the hostages have continued for months.
People protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, May 4, 2024. Ariel Schalit/APOn Tuesday, demonstrators blocked a main road in central Tel Aviv, calling on the Israeli government to make a deal for a ceasefire and the return of the hostages.
There are about 130 captives still unaccounted for accounting to Israeli authorities. It remains unclear how many are still alive.
People protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, May 4, 2024.Ariel Schalit/APIsraeli Maya Roman is trying to stay positive. She said her cousin was taken hostage on Oct. 7 and then released in November of 2023, during the first temporary ceasefire. But another relative, 39-year-old Carmel Gat, was also kidnapped and is believed to still be in Gaza.
“We’re happy to see that Israel is sending someone to Cairo to discuss the new details of the new deal. And, as long as the negotiations are continuing, we think that’s a good sign,” Roman told The World.
She said she hopes that the IDF operations in Rafah will be limited because a large-scale military invasion could put Gat and the other hostages in danger.
When news broke on Monday saying that Hamas was ready to agree to a ceasefire and hostage exchange, Roman said she tried to keep her expectations in check.
“We are dealing with a terrorist organization headed by someone like [Yayha] Sinwar.” In Israel, he was given the nickname “the butcher of Khan Younis,” she said.
“So you can never really trust anything,” she said, adding that it will be hard to believe anything until she sees her cousin alive.
Roman said she’s hoping that the US and the rest of the international community can bring enough pressure on Hamas to agree to a deal.
During a speech on Tuesday about antisemitism and the Holocaust, US President Joe Biden said that people are forgetting about the Hamas attack of Oct. 7 and the hostage-taking.
“I have not forgotten,” Biden said.
The post As Israel moves into Rafah, are ceasefire talks over? appeared first on The World from PRX.
Tanks were seen driving into a deserted terminal on the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Monday, according to a video released by the Israel Defense Forces.
The Israeli military seized control of the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip late Monday night. Earlier that afternoon, Hamas leaders said they were willing to agree to a ceasefire and a hostage-prisoner exchange.
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike east of Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 6, 2024.Ismael Abu Dayyah/AP On Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the offer from Hamas was meant to “disrupt” the Israeli military’s advance into Rafah.
“This did not happen,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant, who visited troops near the Gaza border on Tuesday, said IDF operations in Rafah, “will not stop until Hamas is eliminated in the area or the first hostage returns to Israel.”
Israeli soldiers are seen near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Tuesday, May 7, 2024.Tsafrir Abayov/APA voice on Israeli radio declared on Monday, “the Rafah crossing is in our hands,” an historic reference to 1967, when the IDF took control of the Temple Mount holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem.
“I’m not sure it’s a smart move to take [responsibility of] the crossing,” said Doron Avital, a former IDF special forces commander. “You can’t blame [anybody] if something doesn’t work in terms of humanitarian aid.”
Avital said the IDF appears to be prepared to carry out a major offensive in Rafah — but this might not be the plan. So far, the operation has been limited, and it could be a way to put more pressure on Hamas to free the remaining hostages.
After weeks of pulling its forces out of most of Gaza, Avital said the IDF is now in a risky position, and “Bibi” Netanyahu’s talk of a “total victory” in this war is unrealistic.
“You don’t win a war by killing all your enemy soldiers … because, you know, Hamas operates guerrilla warfare in places that we’ve been through — in the center and in the north … But it’s not like this is the end limit — [that] this is the holy grail of the whole campaign, and everything ends,” Avital said.
For many Palestinians in Gaza, the end of this war cannot come soon enough.
A Palestinian doctor at a hospital in Rafah told the New York Times that 27 bodies were brought there overnight, and over 150 people were injured.
Mohammad Abu Amra told the Associated Press that he lost his wife, brother, sister and niece who were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
“We did nothing,” Amra said. “We were sleeping peacefully. We don’t have wanted people. We don’t have Hamas. The house was turned upside down.”
Palestinians flee from the eastern side of the southern Gaza city of Rafah after the Israeli army orders them to evacuate ahead of a military operation, in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 6, 2024. The order affects tens of thousands of people and could signal a broader invasion of Rafah, which Israel has identified as Hamas’ last major stronghold after seven months of war. Ismael Abu Dayyah/APIn Israel, the top concern for many people is the fate of the remaining hostages who have been held in Gaza now for 214 days.
Protests led by relatives of the hostages have continued for months.
People protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, May 4, 2024. Ariel Schalit/APOn Tuesday, demonstrators blocked a main road in central Tel Aviv, calling on the Israeli government to make a deal for a ceasefire and the return of the hostages.
There are about 130 captives still unaccounted for accounting to Israeli authorities. It remains unclear how many are still alive.
People protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, May 4, 2024.Ariel Schalit/APIsraeli Maya Roman is trying to stay positive. She said her cousin was taken hostage on Oct. 7 and then released in November of 2023, during the first temporary ceasefire. But another relative, 39-year-old Carmel Gat, was also kidnapped and is believed to still be in Gaza.
“We’re happy to see that Israel is sending someone to Cairo to discuss the new details of the new deal. And, as long as the negotiations are continuing, we think that’s a good sign,” Roman told The World.
She said she hopes that the IDF operations in Rafah will be limited because a large-scale military invasion could put Gat and the other hostages in danger.
When news broke on Monday saying that Hamas was ready to agree to a ceasefire and hostage exchange, Roman said she tried to keep her expectations in check.
“We are dealing with a terrorist organization headed by someone like [Yayha] Sinwar.” In Israel, he was given the nickname “the butcher of Khan Younis,” she said.
“So you can never really trust anything,” she said, adding that it will be hard to believe anything until she sees her cousin alive.
Roman said she’s hoping that the US and the rest of the international community can bring enough pressure on Hamas to agree to a deal.
During a speech on Tuesday about antisemitism and the Holocaust, US President Joe Biden said that people are forgetting about the Hamas attack of Oct. 7 and the hostage-taking.
“I have not forgotten,” Biden said.
The post As Israel moves into Rafah, are ceasefire talks over? appeared first on The World from PRX.
Tymofii Muzychuk is one of the lead singers with Kalush Orchestra, a Ukrainian folk and hip-hop group that formed in 2021. But, it’s his flute playing that helps define the band’s sound.
Muzychuk grew up in a small village in the Volyn region in northwest Ukraine, and he told The World through an interpreter that music has always run through his family.
“I’ve been involved with music since [I was] a little kid,” he said. “because my mom used to teach at a music school, and she would take me with her to work and I would play with different instruments.”
The World’s Daniel Ofman interviews Tymofii Muzychuk, one of the lead singers with Kalush Orchestra, about his musical trajectory, which led him to become a member of one of Ukraine’s most popular music groups.Volodymyr Solohub/The WorldWhen he was 5 years old, Muzychuk took up the accordion. But a few years later, he decided it was too heavy to carry around, so he moved on to playing the panpipe, also known as the pan flute.
Muzychuk said that, as a teenager, he listened to a wide variety of music, including hip-hop and rap.
“But I also listen to a lot of folk songs and hip-hop folk. For example, there’s this band called Subcarpathia, which is a Romanian band. They mix folk with rock, and they also play the panpipes,” he said.
Folk music became Muzychuk’s passion.
Inspired by folk music and the musicians already in his family, Tymofii Muzychuk began trying traditional Ukrainian instruments until his research led him to the Carpathian flute, a wooden flute that gained prominence and its name from the Hutsul region of the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine.Daniel Ofman/The WorldHe studied ethnomusicology in college and joined a folk band, where all the members wore Vyshyvankas — traditional Ukrainian embroidered clothing.
It turns out his grandmother did the same thing.
“My grandmother was also a member of a folk band, and my mother said we have a whole wardrobe of these old Vyshyvankas, so I was pretty lucky that I had access to that,” he said.
Muzychuk was inspired by songs his grandmother sang and music he encountered while doing field research.
When the Kalush Orchestra sought a flute player in 2021, Muzychuk turned out to be the perfect fit.
Tymofii Muzychuk is one of the lead singers with Kalush Orchestra, a Ukrainian hip-hop folk group. He’s also the band’s lead flute player and performs with a traditional Carpathian flute. The flute helps define the band’s sound. Daniel Ofman/The WorldOne of the band’s founders, Oleh Psiuk, was more into rap, while Muzychuk injected folk into the mix. That combination defines Kalush Orchestra’s distinct sound heard today.
“Our first song is called “Shtomber Womber.” Don’t ask me what it is, because we don’t know. We just came up with this name out of the blue,” Muzychuk said.
“Shtomber Womber” was a hit, and soon the band was voted to represent Ukraine in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest.
The annual competition draws tens of millions of viewers to watch nations compete against each other for the best original song of the year. And, like the Olympics, taking first place is a huge source of national pride.
When Kalush Orchestra competed in 2022, the band only had two songs: “Shtomber Womber” and “Stefania.”
The group secured first place in the competition with “Stefania,” which also became a huge hit.
“The win at the Eurovision Song Contest helped provide a boost to Ukrainian folk music,” Muzychuk said. “It showed that Ukrainian folk music has a place in the world music arena.”
Since their Eurovision victory two years ago, Kalush Orchestra has become one of the most popular bands in Ukraine.
Kalush Orchestra from Ukraine stands on the stage after winning the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest at PalaOlimpico arena in Turin, Italy, on May 15, 2022.Luca Bruno/APThe band consistently sells out arenas and also raises money for Ukraine’s military and families affected by the war. Muzychuk said that, so far, they’ve raised more than $2 million.
“During the war, it is important to raise the spirits of the people,” he said. “It is important to maybe somehow cheer them up and to show the importance of human values, but also to show the force of music.”
The post Kalush Orchestra brings Ukrainian folk music to the world stage appeared first on The World from PRX.
Tymofii Muzychuk is one of the lead singers with Kalush Orchestra, a Ukrainian folk and hip-hop group that formed in 2021. But, it’s his flute playing that helps define the band’s sound.
Muzychuk grew up in a small village in the Volyn region in northwest Ukraine, and he told The World through an interpreter that music has always run through his family.
“I’ve been involved with music since [I was] a little kid,” he said. “because my mom used to teach at a music school, and she would take me with her to work and I would play with different instruments.”
The World’s Daniel Ofman interviews Tymofii Muzychuk, one of the lead singers with Kalush Orchestra, about his musical trajectory, which led him to become a member of one of Ukraine’s most popular music groups.Volodymyr Solohub/The WorldWhen he was 5 years old, Muzychuk took up the accordion. But a few years later, he decided it was too heavy to carry around, so he moved on to playing the panpipe, also known as the pan flute.
Muzychuk said that, as a teenager, he listened to a wide variety of music, including hip-hop and rap.
“But I also listen to a lot of folk songs and hip-hop folk. For example, there’s this band called Subcarpathia, which is a Romanian band. They mix folk with rock, and they also play the panpipes,” he said.
Folk music became Muzychuk’s passion.
Inspired by folk music and the musicians already in his family, Tymofii Muzychuk began trying traditional Ukrainian instruments until his research led him to the Carpathian flute, a wooden flute that gained prominence and its name from the Hutsul region of the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine.Daniel Ofman/The WorldHe studied ethnomusicology in college and joined a folk band, where all the members wore Vyshyvankas — traditional Ukrainian embroidered clothing.
It turns out his grandmother did the same thing.
“My grandmother was also a member of a folk band, and my mother said we have a whole wardrobe of these old Vyshyvankas, so I was pretty lucky that I had access to that,” he said.
Muzychuk was inspired by songs his grandmother sang and music he encountered while doing field research.
When the Kalush Orchestra sought a flute player in 2021, Muzychuk turned out to be the perfect fit.
Tymofii Muzychuk is one of the lead singers with Kalush Orchestra, a Ukrainian hip-hop folk group. He’s also the band’s lead flute player and performs with a traditional Carpathian flute. The flute helps define the band’s sound. Daniel Ofman/The WorldOne of the band’s founders, Oleh Psiuk, was more into rap, while Muzychuk injected folk into the mix. That combination defines Kalush Orchestra’s distinct sound heard today.
“Our first song is called “Shtomber Womber.” Don’t ask me what it is, because we don’t know. We just came up with this name out of the blue,” Muzychuk said.
“Shtomber Womber” was a hit, and soon the band was voted to represent Ukraine in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest.
The annual competition draws tens of millions of viewers to watch nations compete against each other for the best original song of the year. And, like the Olympics, taking first place is a huge source of national pride.
When Kalush Orchestra competed in 2022, the band only had two songs: “Shtomber Womber” and “Stefania.”
The group secured first place in the competition with “Stefania,” which also became a huge hit.
“The win at the Eurovision Song Contest helped provide a boost to Ukrainian folk music,” Muzychuk said. “It showed that Ukrainian folk music has a place in the world music arena.”
Since their Eurovision victory two years ago, Kalush Orchestra has become one of the most popular bands in Ukraine.
Kalush Orchestra from Ukraine stands on the stage after winning the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest at PalaOlimpico arena in Turin, Italy, on May 15, 2022.Luca Bruno/APThe band consistently sells out arenas and also raises money for Ukraine’s military and families affected by the war. Muzychuk said that, so far, they’ve raised more than $2 million.
“During the war, it is important to raise the spirits of the people,” he said. “It is important to maybe somehow cheer them up and to show the importance of human values, but also to show the force of music.”
The post Kalush Orchestra brings Ukrainian folk music to the world stage appeared first on The World from PRX.
Vagner Goulart, a lawyer from Novo Hamburgo, Brazil, said the flooding of the Guaíba River—a major body of water in the state of Rio Grande do Sul — is unlike anything he’s seen before.
“Rio Grande do Sul has never had a flood like this. Not since 1941. It’s terrible,” Goulart said.
A video shared online on Saturday night showed a human chain of dozens of people stretching into the flood waters in Canoas, Brazil, to help pull in a boat full of people plucked from rooftops.
That scene was repeated again and again over the weekend.
O asfalto começa a ceder na casa de bombas do centro e bombeiros colocam mais sacos de areia nas comportas.
Depois de todas tragédias de 2023, a cidade foi pega de surpresa, mais uma vez? Precisamos repensar o planejamento urbano e ambiental da cidade, urgentemente! pic.twitter.com/5U3dRPwHaK
— Matheus Gomes (@matheuspggomes) May 3, 2024
Right now, water levels in the Guaíba River are a foot and a half higher than they were during the 1941 flood. Thousands of people have lost their homes. Porto Alegre’s airport, Salgado Filho, is underwater and flights are expected to be canceled through the end of the month.
An aerial view of an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 3, 2024. Carlos Macedo/APEmergency messages and sirens blared from loudspeakers in many neighborhoods in recent days as residents were ordered to flee, as rising flood waters breached dikes and poured into neighborhoods.
Since the beginning of the flooding disaster, 20,000 people have been rescued in Rio Grande do Sul — with many being rescued by local residents who have been using their own boats and jet skis.
People evacuate an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 3, 2024. Carlos Macedo/APFabiano Saldanha is one of those residents helping. He was interviewed by a Brazilian media outlet over the weekend.
“I couldn’t sleep last night. Because, in my mind, I could only think of the people yelling, ‘Help, help, help. And they’ve lost everything. They don’t have anything left,” Saldanha told press. “It’s a war, but everyone is helping.”
People evacuate on a surfboard from a neighborhood flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Saturday, May 4, 2024. Carlos Macedo/APOther residents can be found cutting cabbage at a makeshift community soup kitchen in the working-class neighborhood of Cruzeiro, organized by the state chapter of Levante Popular da Juventude, which means Youth Uprising social movement.
Usually, the group cooks to deliver food for neighbors in need. But now, they’re making hundreds of meals to deliver to those hit hardest by the floods — one of dozens of initiatives like this across the region.
Members of Levante Popular da Juventude, a Brazilian organizing group, are making hundreds of meals a day for those in need from the floods.Courtesy of Levante Popular da Juventude“The key word right now is solidarity,” said Lucas Gertz Monteiro, who is coordinating the effort. “This has motivated the people here over the last few days.”
About 82% of the residents of the municipality of Sao Leopoldo, north of Porto Alegre, have been forced from their homes due to the floods. And almost 20,000 people are in shelters across the region right now.
Alexandre Zavascki is a doctor attending to people at one of the centers, a few blocks from downtown Porto Alegre, which is covered in water.
People rest in a shelter after their homes were flooded by heavy rains in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Saturday, May 4, 2024. Carlos Macedo/AP“The main thing I’m treating people for now are things like people have preexisting conditions, like diabetes and hypertension, and they’ve lost their medicine,” he said. “And also, there is a team for psychiatric care because people are impacted and traumatized with what has happened,” he said.
Countless videos online show people being rescued off of corrugated metal rooftops. Brown floodwaters swallowed the rest of the homes. In one video, a woman in a striped black and white shirt lays on a roof. She’s murmuring and barely able to move.
“I know, I know, ma’am,” reassures a rescue worker beside her who is trying to help her get into the helicopter. “But now we’re gonna get you outta here.”
Governor Eduardo Leite told press on Saturday night that they would need absurdly exceptional measures.
“Rio Grande do Sul is going to need a type of Marshall Plan of reconstruction. Something like the reconstruction plan for Europe after World War II.”
Eduardo Leite, governor of Rio Grande do Sul
“Rio Grande do Sul is going to need a type of Marshall Plan of reconstruction,” he said. “Something like the reconstruction plan for Europe after World War II.”
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva flew over the disaster on Sunday. He promised to rebuild roads and help free up necessary funds for the state. He’s also called for a plan to prevent a future disaster like this.
Environmentalists say the state’s relaxation of environmental legislation contributed to the tragedy by clearing forest land for agriculture that would have helped absorb excess runoff.
A man wades through an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 3, 2024. Carlos Macedo/APThey also blame local officials for refusing to implement public policies that would have prepared the region for the disaster.
“Here in Porto Alegre, there were floodgates stuck because of a lack of maintenance. Pump houses, too. A few of them weren’t working. One or two bursts,” said biologist Paulo Brack, a professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. “So, yes, there was a huge lack of preparation on the part of Porto Alegre’s City Hall. And unfortunately, there was no preparation for this event by the Porto Alegre municipal government or the Rio Grande do Sul state government.”
Despite sunny skies #floodwaters in Porto Alegre, #Brazil continue to rise. The mayor's office has issued an alert for the neighborhoods of Cidade Baixa & Menino Deus, advising residents to find a safe place to stay w/ relatives or in a shelter. Rio Grande do Sul #tragedy. https://t.co/kGdTpAnyqK
— Michael Fox (@mfox_us) May 6, 2024
Experts say the water levels in Porto Alegre’s Guaíba River could remain above flood levels for the next 10 days. Meanwhile, 70% of residents in the region lack potable water.
Streets are flooded after deadly, heavy rainfall in Duque de Caxias, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. Bruna Prado/APGustavo Türck, a local journalist with the community media outlet Coletivo Catarse, said his family has electricity and running water for now, but they are rationing.
“It’s only a matter of time before the water runs out, so we are filling up bottles,” he said. “We don’t know what to expect. We’ve never lived through anything like this, and it’s going to be a long time before the city rebounds from this tragedy.”
In the meantime, Brazilians everywhere are doing what they can to help.
Residents of the Florianopolis neighborhood have gathered together to collect food and household items for flooding victims.Courtesy of Silvia LeindeckerAcross the country, people are gathering donations. Dozens of people chipped in at one community effort last night in Florianópolis, about six hours from Porto Alegre. Residents packed mattresses, clothes, diapers, shoes and water into a truck already headed south.
It’s one small effort. But right now, this is all people can do: Help and pray for clear skies.
The post Heavy flooding in Brazil’s south creates havoc for residents appeared first on The World from PRX.
On a recent morning in Darjeeling, nestled amid lush tea gardens overlooking the snow-capped Himalayas in India’s northeast, the mood was anything but tranquil amid election season in India.
The government college has been transformed into an election distribution center abuzz with activity. Loudspeaker announcements played in the background as poll workers streamed into the center to register and receive their assignments and equipment.
Polling personnel arrive at an election distribution center in Darjeeling. Sushmita Pathak/The WorldThe poll workers were equipped with backpacks reminiscent of trekkers due to the hilly terrain they navigate as they register others to vote.
Poll workers conduct final checks of their equipment before departing to set up voting booth in Darjeeling district in India’s northeast.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldIndia is in the middle of a consequential general election that will decide the country’s next prime minister. With nearly a billion voters and more than a million polling stations, the democratic exercise currently underway in India is the largest in the world.
But conducting a free and fair election of this scale in a vast and geographically diverse country such as India is a major logistical endeavor that requires meticulous planning and coordination.
“It is gargantuan, it is incredible, but it is satisfying,” said Ashok Lavasa, who oversaw India’s previous election in 2019.
No voter left behindSushant Bharati is one of the millions of election personnel deployed across the country.
As he waited to receive polling materials, he described the journey ahead—a short car trip followed by a 2-mile climb uphill while hauling electronic voting machines, paperwork and other polling materials.
Poll workers conduct final checks of their equipment before departing to set up a voting booth in Darjeeling district in India’s northeast.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldThis journey underscores the logistical challenges faced in ensuring that no voter is more than 1.25 miles away from a polling station, as Indian guidelines stipulate. In some remote areas, entire polling stations are established for just a handful of voters, requiring arduous treks or unconventional transportation methods.
Polling officials hand out electronic voting machines, paperwork and other materials to polling personnel at an election distribution center in Darjeeling.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldPoll workers assigned to the three most challenging voting stations in the Darjeeling district leave two days in advance and trek as much as 10 miles through rhododendron forests. And in the western Indian state of Gujarat, an entire polling station is set up deep in the Gir forest, home to Asiatic lions, just to accommodate one voter.
Polling officials hand out electronic voting machines, paperwork and other materials to polling personnel at an election distribution center in Darjeeling.Sushmita Pathak/The World“There are multiple challenges … taking polling personnel and equipment by boat, sometimes on elephant backs,” said Lavasa, the former election commissioner. “There are polling stations where we have to airdrop our polling officials.”
A lengthy affairMembers of India’s central armed police force accompany the polling personnel and are tasked with maintaining law and order throughout the electoral process.
“When you mobilize a force of this nature which has to be deployed in a million polling stations, [the] quantum of force available, that becomes a bottleneck,” Lavasa said.
The election is usually spread across multiple weeks to give security forces enough time to move between locations. The Election Commission of India must also consider other factors impacting the voting schedule, such as local festivals or school examinations.
A mural in Darjeeling, a small hill station in India’s northeast, depicts tea gardens and a toy train. Some polling stations in this hilly region require poll workers to trek for hours through jungles and ferry polling equipment on mules.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldIndian elections have always been lengthy affairs. The first general election, in 1952, took place over 68 phases and lasted about four months. This time, the voting is taking place over seven phases in six weeks.
Some opposition members say the costs involved in stretching out the campaign puts them at a disadvantage compared to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose political party is the wealthiest in the country. While the prolonged election period may pose challenges, however, the Election Commission of India maintains that it is necessary.
“It is our promise to deliver a national election in a manner that will add to our global shine and remain a beacon for electoral democracies across the world,” Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said at a press conference in March.
Kumar outlined several formidable challenges: controlling violence, illegal political expenditure, and misinformation. The commission deploys surveillance teams to nab cash, liquor and other freebies that could be used to bribe voters.
More than 2,000 election observers will monitor the polls this year to ensure a level playing field.
“Every election is a new test and failure is not an option,” Kumar said.
Lavasa, the former election commissioner, said these dedicated individuals view their roles in the electoral process as “a sacred duty toward the constitution.”
As the poll workers in Darjeeling conducted final checks on their voting equipment and paperwork, they seemed well aware of the enormous responsibility on their shoulders.
Poll worker Rajesh Rai said he was assigned to a remote area where he heard the roads are bad.
“I am a bit anxious, but we have to take the risk and go,” he said.
India’s final voting day is slated for June 1, with results expected on June 4.
The post What it takes to pull off the world’s largest election in India appeared first on The World from PRX.
When Julián, a 41-year-old Peruvian entrepreneur, opened a fruit shop in a suburb of Lima, Peru, back in 2022, he put up a big sign with a WhatsApp number for customer support. He was hoping to get messages from potential clients. Instead, what he got were death threats.
Julián didn’t want to share his full name out of fear of retribution.
“I was getting daily messages from someone I didn’t know,” Julián explained, “saying things like ‘we know that you have a business, we know where you and your family live, and we need you to transfer us the equivalent of $1,300 every other week, or you’ll have to bear the consequences.’”
Julián reached out to the police, and they advised him not to send any money. But when he started talking to other business owners in the area, he learned that some of them had also been extorted, and even kidnapped. Some were already paying these fees, while others didn’t even want to discuss the matter. Everyone was terrified.
One morning, when he was opening the shop, he found a bullet at the entrance with a handwritten note asking, one more time, for money.
Days later, a masked man on a motorbike entered his business with a pistol, demanding what he described as a “protection fee.”
“I got scared and confused, and didn’t really know what to do,” he said in a recent interview. Julián began transferring the fee via a digital wallet for several months, until he finally decided to sell his business and move to his native city, 300 miles away.
Cases of extortion in Peru shot up 370% between 2021 and 2023, from 4,761 to 22,396, according to the country’s Attorney General’s Office.
That represents close to a fivefold increase in just two years. The trend is continuing into 2024, according to General Marco Antonio Conde Cuellar, director of criminal investigation at the Lima Police Department.
“We’ve been capturing between four and five criminal gangs linked to extortion every week in Lima,” Conde Cuellar said.
General Marco Antonio Cuellar, director of the criminal investigation unit at the Lima Police Department.Courtesy of Lima Police DepartmentThe majority of the new cases are reported by small business owners, especially owners of “bodegas”, a type of convenience store popular in Latin America.
Andrés Choy, president of Peru’s National Association of Bodega Owners, said of the 22,000 members of its organization, 13,000 have either been extorted or threatened by criminals. At least five “bodegueros” have been killed in extortion-related conflicts, according to his own registry.
Julio Surco, director of the National Association of Small Businesses in Peru says many main street businesses are even hesitant to do updates or renovations in their shops, because it might signal to potential extorters that they have money.
Many, like Julián, are forced to pay a “protection fee.” Others end up borrowing money from loan sharks, who demand exorbitant interest rates. About half a million people in Peru carry this kind of debt, according to the National Association of Creditors. The 1.2 million Venezuelan migrants living in Peru are also vulnerable to being exploited by predatory lenders. The most common reason borrowers seek out the loans is to pay other debts.
“Usually, the delinquents involved in these plots have little criminal experience, and are venturing into the extortion business because it’s relatively easy to do, and it’s very lucrative.”
Cuellar added that it’s common that the extorters pretend to be part of larger transnational criminal cartels from Colombia or Venezuela, to generate more fear. In some cases, however, the link does exist, posing a bigger challenge for the authorities.
Earlier this year, police in Lima dismantled a Venezuelan-Colombian group with 20 members devoted to predatory lending. They also seized guns and explosives from the group.
“It’s hard to put any real estimates on how lucrative extortion can be, but it’s a significant percentage of GDP of any country in Latin America,” said Chris Dalby, director of World of Crime, a security think tank.
He said extortion doesn’t always get a high level of attention from the authorities. “A lot of it happens at a low level, in a non-violent way, and authorities tend to be more focused on more flashy crimes, like homicides and kidnappings.”
Dalby added that it’s crucial to tackle extortion because it generally ends up leading to violent crime, and can end up affecting whole industries, cities and towns.
“Extortion is, yes, going to a shop and shaking down business owners for weekly or monthly protection money. But it’s also controlling entire industries, monopolizing them and extorting every single player in the supply chain in a very coordinated, and almost taxed way,” Dalby explained.
General Conde Cuellar said one of the main challenges his office faces in stopping extortion is the high number of cases that go unreported. “Victims get so scared to the point that they don’t even want to make a formal complaint,” he explained.
Choy said, in many cases, bodega owners are told to report the crime in person, and when they go to the police station, they are followed by strangers. “People are so scared of retaliation that, many times, they decide not to go.”
Extortion and predatory lending have skyrocketed in other neighboring countries, as well.
In Chile, extortion cases have almost doubled since the pandemic, according to data from the Public Ministry.
In Ecuador — the country with the highest murder rate in Latin America — drug cartels control territories along the Pacific coast and have established tax systems where companies, small and large, are demanded “protection fees” known as “vacunas”, a Spanish word for vaccines.
After the financial shakeup that came with the COVID-19 pandemic, extortion became particularly important for the survival of a lot of criminal groups, according to Chris Dalby. “In recent years there’s been increased criminal competition to control territory, whether it be urban or rural. And all of those groups see extortion as the main way of controlling that territory and making money from it.”
Research has also shown that debt has historically been a common cause of migration across the Americas.
Abby Ardilles contributed reporting for this story from Lima, Peru.
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On a recent day, tourists huddled around digital telescopes lining the deck of an observatory overlooking the Imjin River.
The monitors presented an up-close look at unsuspecting North Koreans moving about inside a village on the other side of the demilitarized zone, or the DMZ — a roughly 150-mile stretch of uninhabited land that has bisected the Korean peninsula since the early 1950s.
“Can you imagine that seven years ago I lived there?” said a tour guide who recently took a family of three from Norway on their first trip to the border.
It was also the group’s first time meeting someone who escaped North Korea.
Jun (left) and one of his guests check out a North Korean “propaganda village” located on the other side of the border. Jason Strother/The WorldEven though the village they gazed upon is a replica created by Pyongyang for show, the guide explained what life was like growing up in a real North Korean town and translated a propaganda banner that uses distinctly North Korean jargon to call for a bountiful rice harvest.
The 28-year-old defector is one of the 34,000 North Koreans who now live in South Korea.
He goes by the nickname “Jun” on social media and asked to be called that for this article in order to protect the identity of his father, who stayed behind in North Korea.
“If your child escapes North Korea, it’s a top crime, and I don’t want to get my father in trouble,” he said to his clients.
Most DMZ tours tend to focus on the military history of the region, as well as the politics surrounding the two countries’ division — all from the South Korean point of view.
During his DMZ tours, Jun tries to give more context to what life was like in North Korea. Jason Strother/The WorldJun saw an opportunity to give visitors a unique experience.
After graduating earlier this year from a university in Seoul with a business degree, he started advertising his tours online.
“In my tour, I want to give information about North Korea that isn’t too political and isn’t too sad,” he said, noting that some defectors on the international stage only focus on the hardships of life there.
“In my tour, I want to give information about North Korea that isn’t too political and isn’t too sad.”
Jun, DMZ tour guide from North Korea
He hopes to give his customers a more nuanced perspective.
“It’s the worst country,” he said. “But even there, people still try to find happiness.”
Jun has fond memories of his childhood; sharing special meals with family and friends and playing volleyball and soccer with other kids.
But, he discovered that these are not the kinds of stories that some South Koreans expect or want to hear from refugees. Jun feels that defectors are regarded just as “poor and sad people who’ve been brainwashed by the North Korean government.”
“Even when I speak truthfully, some South Korean people don’t believe my story,” he said.
For these reasons, he prefers to guide foreign tourists.
During his daylong tour, which includes two stops along the border, as well as lunch at a restaurant run by other defectors, Jun, who speaks conversational English, fielded various questions.
Jun’s daylong tour concludes at a park alongside the DMZ in Paju, South Korea. Jason Strother/The WorldHe told them he didn’t know anything about the world outside of North Korea until his family figured out how to pick up South Korean broadcasts by illegally modifying their TV antenna.
“It was like a drug,” Jun said, recalling watching “Ironman” and other foreign movies and music videos.
But, he also saw South Korean newscasts, which he said altered his worldview.
“My mind started changing so quickly and I was no longer happy, because I found out the truth,” Jun said.
Over coffee with his tour group, Jun explained how those TV shows influenced his decision to defect.
He and his mother secretly crossed the border into northeastern China, where South Korean Christian missionaries hide escapees from the police. If caught, they’d be sent back to North Korea and, according to some rights groups, could face execution.
The missionaries offered to help them reach South Korea. But, Jun said the missionaries had one condition — they’d have to believe in God, first.
Jun said that given their circumstances, he and his mother “had no option.”
After four months of Bible study in a safe house, the two were smuggled into Vietnam, where they were connected with the South Korean Embassy and flown to Seoul.
Jun has reconciled that he’ll probably never see his family and friends in the North Korea again. And he said he feels that he’s experienced something like post-traumatic stress disorder after all that he’s been through.
But, he said that somehow, coming to the DMZ consoles him.
He said taking other travelers there — as close as he can get to his former home — helps him make sense of his own journey.
“It’s meaningful to me and I don’t know if my customers get the same emotion,” he said, “So, I’m going to keep coming here and one day recover, I hope.”
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The Kura River, which has its headwaters in Turkey, cuts eastward into Georgia, where it is called the Mt’k’vari. National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek recorded those icy waters in March 2015 when he was walking toward the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.
The city is currently in the grips of a political crisis over a Russia-inspired law that critics fear will stifle media freedom.
Paul Salopek is back in Tbilisi now and talked with The World’s Marco Werman about the area’s cultural past and the country’s political landscape today.
Marco Werman: Paul, it’s good to have you back on the show. We’ll get to the protests in a moment, there’s big news there that we’ve been covering. But let’s talk first about Tbilisi, where you are right now. Historically, what makes Tbilisi unique? Paul Salopek: It’s another one of these trading hubs, and it’s like a fulcrum point that balances right between Europe and Asia. This is where many of the Silk Road caravans came. They would unload their merchandise here, take a steam bath in the hammam, and then trade on to Europe. So, it was kind of a marketplace society here where everybody was welcome. You had been walking for nearly two years, nearly 3,000 miles out of East Africa, when you reached Georgia in 2015. From what I understand, you kind of got stuck there for months. How did you shift gears from visitor to basically resident? Yeah, months and months. I was trying to get a visa to walk through Iran because Iran, as you know, Marco, is a hugely important country in terms of just human culture, human migrations. And the weeks were ticking off. Right? I was applying, I was applying, I was kind of thinking I’d be staying in Tbilisi only for, you know, maybe a few weeks. I ended up spending almost nine months waiting here. Iran’s that important. Guess what? The visa did not come through. So, I had to basically enjoy a lot of good wine here and got to know the Caucasus before heading into Central Asia instead. Scientists think some variation on this ritual has repeated for at least 8,000 years. The Château Mukhrani winery outside Tbilisi, Georgia. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org. Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkOne of your explorations in Georgia took you to a vineyard. Georgians claimed to have invented wine-making. Is that national pride speaking, or is there something to it? It’s a little bit of both. It’s a complicated thing. I don’t want to offend my Georgian friends, right? It’s really hard to go back 8,000 years. This is early, almost Neolithic. This was even before the Bronze Age. There was no written language. But they found, you know, they found clay pots here. They’ve done scrapings inside, analyzed whatever residues, and it was grape juice. So, I think Georgia has as good a claim as anybody, maybe, you know, parts of Turkey, parts of the Caucasus. This area might have been the original vineyard of the world, for grape wine anyway. They’re very proud of it. I mean, you write about this vineyard where a previous owner, whom you describe as a Francophile, used to make champagne, which would flow in a fountain in the courtyard. It was a great anecdote. I went to another vineyard when I was here, a small family vineyard. And the guy was making beautiful wine. Georgian wine, as you may know, specializes in making it out of a clay pot. They sink it into a ground. It’s called a kvevri, and it has kind of an earthy flavor because of that. Very distinctive. And [the guy] said, “You know, I went to Italy, and I won this first prize award.” And they said [to him], “Hey, where have you been all these years?” He said, “Guys, you know, we’ve been fighting the Russians. Give me a break.”Archaeologist Mindia Jalabadze and a wine vessel from a sixth millennium B.C. village site in southern Georgia. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org. Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkNow, notably, Georgians have also been cultivating honey bees for thousands of years. You came across an archeological dig, a burial site where mummified bodies had been embalmed with honey. Tell us about that. I got to actually go into the lab where they were analyzing some of these artifacts. We’re talking about 4,300 years old. This is really the beginning of the Bronze Age. These are semi-nomadic cultures that used big ox carts. They had tamed oxen but not horses yet. And they were kind of moving, like in tented camps around the steppes, around the mountains of this part of the world. The archeologists found this very big mound that they dug into and buried, and it was some kind of a chieftain. There were apparently people who were slaves who had been sacrificed and who died along with him. But they and everything else in this burial chamber was preserved with honey. You could smell 4,000-year-old honey. You could smell the sweetness coming out of it. They had, like, nuts and berries and pieces of basketry. Honey is an amazing preservative. The poet-hero’s tomb on a Tbilisi hillside. Join the journey at outofedenwalk.org. Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkHow did honey preserve the human body? It’s so sweet that bacteria can’t survive in it because they consume all the oxygen, and it becomes an anoxic environment. So, the bog people that you heard about in Scandinavian, people they pull out of these mud bogs …There’s just no oxygen, so they don’t decay. Honey has kind of the same effect, right? There’s even a legend that Alexander the Great was buried in honey. Incredible. Paul, you also wrote about Georgians’ reverence for their nation’s poets. What does that say about Georgian identity? Yeah, I mean, they have an amazing, rich, very old lyric tradition here. It’s equal to their pride and being kind of one of the first vineyards in the world. Their heroes, their national heroes, are poets. Shota Rustaveli, Vazha Pshavela …These are the names of these kinds of iconic lyricists. You can tell a lot about a society when you walk through its capital and see who’s up on the pedestals and who were immortalized in statuary. Many societies, its kings, its generals on horses with a saber pointing at the sky, and [its] powerful people. In Georgia, it’s often poets. “I, by fate, am doomed to wander…” A portrait of Vazha Pshavela at a museum in Chargali.Paul Salopek/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkNow, the question of identity and free expression. It brings us to today, when Georgian security forces are cracking down on protesters outside parliament after lawmakers are close to approving this foreign agents bill. Many there see it as authoritarian and Russian-inspired. What are the people you’ve been speaking with saying about it? What’s happening here and what people here tell me on the streets …just last night, there were 85,000 [to] 90,000 people marching in the streets against this bill, which the government says is for transparency purposes. The idea is, with this bill, any kind of individual or institution that receives more than 20% of their funding from abroad has to be registered. And the problem with that sounds like, you know, OK, that’s just a transparency law. The problem with that is it has been weaponized in other countries, including in Russia, where the people on the streets doing the demonstration say that even the language of this bill echoes the Russian bill that has been used to crack down on civil society. And indeed, there’s an election later this year. There’s a very important election coming in the autumn in Georgia. And the opposition people, the citizens marching in the streets, are saying it’ll be very difficult to monitor and watchdog this election if this bill passes. Because all of us, the media, civil society groups, election watchdogs, will suddenly have a very intrusive government looking into what they’re doing because of this registration process. Well, Paul, I mean, you’ve read a lot about Georgian history. You were immersed in the country for nearly a year, as you explained. Put this current debate and conflict over the foreign agents’ bill into a historical context. Looking at deep history, the Caucasus have always been a bridge. They’ve bridged two continents, you know, Europe and Asia, the northern steppe, the southern Mediterranean climates. So, yet again, this seems to be a tug of war for the country of Georgia about where its heart lies versus where geopolitics is trying to drag it. Eighty percent of Georgians, according to the latest polls, favor integrating into the EU. The EU is saying that this new bill threatens Georgian integration. So there’s a tension here between, I guess, elites, political elites and ordinary people, between people who’ve had power here for a long time and those who don’t. And it’s just playing out. This is the latest iteration of a place that’s both a crossroads for trade but also a cockpit for competing power. And a very important part of the world. Parts of this interview have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.
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In a small house at the end of a narrow alley in the western Indian city of Jodhpur, women were hard at work sewing scraps of cloth together to make patchwork.
At this vocational training center run by a local nonprofit called Sambhali Trust, women from low-income families learn self-defense and other life skills like sewing and embroidery.
At a vocational training center in the western Indian city of Jodhpur, women are hard at work sewing. More Indian women are voting in elections than ever before but experts say India’s female labor force participation is abysmally low.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldAs 31-year-old Yasmin Bano guided a square piece of cloth under the needle, she said that she’s never missed voting in any election. But that wasn’t the case for her mother or grandmother.
“Back in the day, only men used to take an interest in voting and elections,” Bano said. “Women were more concerned with housework.”
Yasmin Bano is part of India’s emerging female voter bloc. By 2029, women voters are expected to outnumber men.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldBano is now part of India’s emerging female voter bloc. And more women like her are taking part in the multiweek general election currently underway in India.
Nearly half of the electorate is expected to be female. It follows a rising trend of female voter turnout in recent years. In the last parliamentary election in 2019, women voted at a higher rate than men for the first time in India’s history. And by 2029, women voters are expected to outnumber men.
“That’s an incredible feat for the country,” said Rithika Kumar, a political scientist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. But it shrouds a more complicated reality on the ground for women.
“… Women are actually coming out to vote, but it doesn’t seem to be translating in some of the other key dimensions of female empowerment.”
Rithika Kumar, political scientist and postdoctoral fellow, University of Notre Dame
“It’s a very interesting contrast that we are seeing, that women are actually coming out to vote, but it doesn’t seem to be translating in some of the other key dimensions of female empowerment,” Kumar added.
Political parties court womenIndia’s political parties are trying to win over these crucial women voters, running campaign ads targeted toward them and tailoring election guarantees according to women’s needs. Their promises include everything from direct cash transfers to building public toilets and hostels for women.
But one party has been particularly successful in appealing to women — that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“The BJP particularly has made incredible inroads into the political consciousness, even of rural women voters,” Kumar said.
At another training center in Jodhpur, a group of about two dozen women said they’re all rooting for Modi. “We hope he wins this time, too,” said Chanchal Chauhan, who is learning embroidery.
A woman at a vocational training center in Jodhpur holds up her embroidery work. The women say they want more focus on women’s education, more jobs, better safety and more freedom.Sushmita Pathak/The World“Modi has tried to bring gender equality,” participant Pooja Prajapati said. “He has created jobs for women, created opportunities for women in sports.”
Sitting beside her, Priyanka Barasa rattled off a string of welfare schemes introduced by Modi, under which low-income families have received subsidized cooking gas, water and electricity connections, affordable housing and more.
Persisting gender gapsWelfare schemes often form the centerpiece of political parties’ outreach toward women.
Across Indian cities, huge billboards display Modi’s face along with the faces of the women who have benefitted from his government’s myriad schemes. “Mothers give us strength and Modi gives strength to mothers,” goes a BJP campaign ad.
While the rising number of female voters is resulting in politicians paying more heed to women’s problems, there’s often a patriarchal connotation in the way political parties talk about women’s issues, Kumar explained.
“Many of these schemes … are still thinking of women in the context of the household,” she said. “Thinking of women as individuals who need to be provided for and whose main duty is caregiving. But more needs to be done to think of women’s identities beyond the household.”
That’s particularly important given the state of India’s female workforce participation. “Labor force participation among [Indian] women was, until very recently, declining and now has plateaued and still remains abysmally low,” Kumar added.
Many women at the training centers in Jodhpur said they wanted to work but were discouraged by their families or were tied down by responsibilities at home.
Women learn embroidery at a vocational training center run by a nonprofit in the city of Jodhpur, western India. Many of them say they’d like to work but are discouraged by their families or are tied down by responsibilities at home.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldSignificant gender gaps remain in other forms of political engagement.
“Be it constant engagement with the state for your benefits, demanding rights and entitlements from your local state actors or even things like attending campaign rallies or door-to-door canvassing — all of these still remain very, very male-dominated spaces,” Kumar said.
And while female voters have become a common sight, women leaders are rare. Women make up only 14% of India’s lower house of parliament. That is set to change after 2029, when a recently passed bill mandating a third of seats in parliament be reserved for women goes into effect.
A deep-rooted patriarchyEven though more women are turning up to vote, their choice is often decided by the men in their families, said Govind Singh Rathore, the founder of Sambhali Trust, a nonprofit that runs the vocational training centers in Jodhpur.
Many of the women his nonprofit serves don’t have much exposure to the news or social media, he explained.
“Unfortunately, [because of] patriarchy they’re not strengthened enough to [take] such sort of decisions on their own,” Rathore said, adding that it all boils down to the deeply ingrained conservative attitudes in states like Rajasthan, of which Jodhpur is a part.
The gender divide in Rajasthan is very wide. Families prefer sons, Rathore explained, and when a daughter is born, family members often keep the girl’s hair short to make her appear like a boy.
Within some Hindu families, they also start calling the girls “derogatory terms or names so that God would then bless [them] with a boy child.” He’s come across parents who have named their daughters “Dhapu,” which roughly translates to “being fed up.” This misogynistic attitude needs to change, he said.
Back at the training center in Jodhpur, women discussed their hopes for the future. They said they want more focus on women’s education, more jobs, better safety and more freedom.
Every Saturday, women at the vocational training center put their work aside and take turns dancing to Bollywood songs. They say Indian women should have more freedom and not hold themselves back over fear of judgment from their conservative society.Sushmita Pathak/The World“You can’t post a photo, you can’t wear shorts, you can’t wear makeup or speak out, because society will judge you,” Rita Khitchi said. Another woman, Chanchal Chauhan, said she never used to dance because she lacked confidence.
But not anymore. Every Saturday, the women take a break from their work and turn the music up.
“Now, I dance my heart out,” Chauhan said.
Related: The largest election in the world begins in India
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Sarah Bennani, 19, said she remembers precisely when she started wearing the hijab full-time.
Bennani, who was born in the suburbs of Paris, had just started a university degree in international business. As she watched young women walk into lecture halls wearing the Islamic headscarf, she marveled at their confidence and decided to wear one, too.
“They just seemed so normal about wearing it. And I was like, OK, so what am I so afraid of?”
Her parents, who are from Morocco, felt differently. “They are concerned about my security and they worry that I won’t be able to get a job wearing it.” Maybe they are right, she said, but she remains confident.
“I am more than just my hijab,” said Bennani, who now presents her own podcast “Les Percées,” or “Breakthrough.”
“I am more than just my hijab.”
Sarah Bennani, host of the podcast, ““Les Percées”
Sarah Bennani is the host of the podcast “Breakthrough.” Orla Barry/The WorldThe law banning the hijab and any other “symbols or clothing that conspicuously demonstrate a pupil’s religious affiliation” has been in place in public schools and government institutions in France since 2004.
The French government has said the hijab ban reflected the country’s long-held policy of secularism — laïcite — that institutes the separation of church and state. A majority of the French public — 77% — say they are “opposed” to demonstrations of religious symbols in schools and support for the ban is high.
But with French athletes now prohibited from wearing any religious items while competing at the summer’s Olympic Games in Paris, the issue is more divisive than ever.
Jeanne Malet, a senior research executive at Verian, a research institute in Paris, said support for the hijab ban has actually increased over the last two decades, but this position varies across generations.
According to her 2023 study, just 31% of 18-to-30-year-olds supported the rule, Malet said.
Jeanne Malet is a senior research executive at Verian, a research institute in Paris. Orla Barry/The WorldMuslims make up an estimated 10% of the population in France — the largest Muslim population in Europe. Malet said teachers are generally very supportive of the law prohibiting the display of religious symbols in schools — about 90% said they are in favor of the ban in public secondary schools.
Christophe Naudin, a history teacher at a public high school in Paris, is among them. Naudin said that his students across the religious spectrum need to understand that the ban is not anti-religion or anti-freedom — it’s for their own protection from proselytism in the classroom.
Christoperh Naudin teaches history in Paris, France. Orla Barry/The WorldAs an expert in medieval Islam, Naudin has shown images of the Prophet Muhammad in his classroom — an act considered by some to be blasphemous. It rarely causes any problem, he said. But the brutal murder of teacher Samuel Paty in Paris in 2020 has made him more cautious. Paty was killed outside his school in a suburb of Paris after showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a class on freedom of expression.
That really hit home, Naudin said. In 2015, Naudin was at the Bataclan theater in Paris when Islamist militants attacked. The multipronged assault on the French capital resulted in the deaths of 130 people. It was the deadliest attack on French soil since World War II.
Surviving that attack had a huge impact on Naudin.
“I have a vision of the world that’s not very positive. In fact, I’m always planning for the worst.” Spending time with his students helped him recover, he said. “They are the ones who give me hope.”
While he broadly supports the ban on religious symbols in schools, Naudin said the purpose of similar restrictions in other areas of French life are far from clear.
Hijab ban in sportsIn 2022, basketball player Hélène Bâ was warming up with her teammates before a game in Paris when her coach approached. He told her that the referee had decided she could only participate if she removed her sports hijab. The referee called the hijab “dangerous,” and said it had to be removed under the new rules.
A month prior, the French Basketball Federation had introduced Article 9.3 to the General Sports Regulations, expressly banning “the wearing of any equipment with a religious or political connotation in competitions.”
Bâ explained that the head covering was specifically made for sport and approved by the International Basketball Federation, but the referee refused to let her play. Bâ spent the game sitting on the bench, humiliated.
“I didn’t want people to talk to me, I didn’t want anyone’s pity. I just felt numb and I just wanted to get out of there,” Bâ said.
Hélène Bâ plays during Basket Pour Toutes first tournament in Noisy-le-Sec on April 13, 2024.Courtesy of Nipdec via Hélène-BâFor a number of months, Bâ would turn up for games but more often than not, a referee would tell her she couldn’t play unless she removed her head covering. Now she no longer bothers to go.
Bâ said she never considered removing her hijab for the game.
“When I wear it, I feel like it protects me, like I’m closer to God. I feel more at ease in society, in my body, in my religion, within the community.”
“When I wear [my hijab], I feel like it protects me, like I’m closer to God. I feel more at ease in society, in my body, in my religion, within the community.”
Hélène Bâ, basketball player, France
Amnesty International condemned the rule. It also pointed out that the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) had lifted its global ban on head coverings in 2017.
The federation cited “security” reasons for the ban. But given that the clothing Bâ and others wear is regulated by the International Basketball Federation, that didn’t stack up, according to Haifa Tlili, a sociology researcher in Paris. The federation also said the ban had to do with “neutrality” but failed to elaborate.
Tlili had a grimmer explanation: “Islamophobia and sexism.”
Haifa Tlili is a sociology researcher in Paris, France. Courtesy of Amandine LauriolLast September, Tlili, Bâ and other Muslim players and coaches formed the collective “Basket Pour Toutes” (“Basketball for All”) to campaign against the ban.
Basketball for All, or Basket Pour Toutes’, first tournament in Noisy-le-Sec on April 13, 2024.Courtesy of Nipdec via Hélène-BâThat same month, Minister of Sports and Olympic and Paralympic Games Amélie Oudéa-Castéra announced that French athletes would be forbidden from wearing the hijab or any other religious items while competing at the Olympics in Paris this summer.
“That means a ban on any type of proselytizing. That means absolute neutrality in public services, the France team will not wear the headscarf,” Oudea-Castera told France 3 TV.
A few days after the French sports minister’s comments, the International Olympic Committee said “there would be no restrictions on wearing the hijab or any other religious or cultural attire in the Olympic Village.” The United Nations’ human rights office also condemned the ban.
The Committee said it was in contact with the French National Olympic and Sports Committee to understand the ban and said it understood the rule refers to the French team only.
Bâ said she’s not surprised by the French government’s position but is deeply disappointed at the lackluster response from international sports bodies like the International Olympic Committee, which could have taken a much more forthright approach.
French athletes are going to leave France because of these restrictions, Bâ said.
Bâ believes Muslim women will become increasingly reluctant to get involved in sports because of these kinds of obstacles.
“They are pushing the limits further and further back in France and this worries me. What will be left of our fundamental rights and freedoms if we continue down this path?”
Editor’s note: Léontine Gallois contributed to reporting. The original story stated Jeanne Malet’s study came out in 2021. It has been corrected to 2023.
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In the Israeli town of Tkuma, about 3 miles from the Gaza Strip, vehicles in various states of destruction sit in a giant lot.
It resembles a graveyard for cars — many are just brown shells with the paint burned off from the attacks by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023.
A lot of these cars belonged to people attending the Nova music festival. Many tried to escape in them, only to be chased down by Hamas and attacked.
“I call it the largest murder scene of the modern era, if you want. Over here there are over 1,650 vehicles that were brought into this place,” said reserve Capt. Adam Ita, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman for Israel’s southern district.
Six months after Hamas militants attacked several areas in southern Israel, Israelis and foreign visitors continue to go to those sites for various and complex reasons.
A car destroyed during Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel sits in a large “graveyard of cars” gathered from that day.Marco Werman/The WorldIn April, when The World visited, Ita talked about why the site is important, first and foremost, as a source of forensic evidence. During the interview, a crowd of some 30 onlookers led by an Australian guide gathered around him to hear his remarks.
Other people were also entering the site, arriving on tour buses, also to witness this scene of carnage from Oct. 7.
Similar crowds gathered in other spots where attacks took place.
Visitors gather at a memorial on the site of the Nova music festival, where Hamas militants attacked on Oct. 7, 2023. Marco Werman/The WorldIn the city of Sderot, a local police department waged a battle against Hamas fighters on Oct. 7.
Today, a memorial to honor the police officers who died in battle draws Israelis and foreign tourists alike.
The building where the police station used to be has been razed. In its place is gravel and a marker in the center of the ground surrounded by hundreds of candles.
In the city of Sderot, Israeli soldiers gather around a memorial at the local police station where officers battled against Hamas fighters on Oct. 7, 2023.Marco Werman/The WorldJeffrey Stern, from Westport, Connecticut, visited this site after already spending several days visiting other places that Hamas attacked.
“Prior to this,” he said, “we’ve been seeing the path of the terrorists. Clearly they had maps, so you can see them take a turn and back up, like we would do looking for a friend’s home.”
Stern spoke passionately about how these events unfolded.
“I’m just trying to experience, and therefore sympathize and identify with [the victims],” Stern said.
“I’m just trying to experience, and therefore sympathize and identify with [the victims].”
Jeffrey Stern, tourist in Israel
For some, visiting sites of violence can be seen as voyeuristic. Stern said he knows people who have chosen not to visit these sites for this reason, and he respects that.
“But on the other hand, I also feel I’m a little bit of a witness. I want to be able to tell my grandkids what I saw,” he said.
Tamar Ben-Yosef had just arrived in Sderot and was actually wrestling with why she was there. Ben-Yosef was born in Israel, served in the IDF, and now lives in Anchorage, Alaska.
She said she was here to pay her respects but also to see for herself and learn more directly about what happened on Oct. 7.
“I’m processing … a lot of processing … trying to determine if it’s respectful or voyeuristic, but mostly, I feel like I need to see it to truly process,” Ben-Yosef said.
Tamar Ben-Yosef, an Israeli who lives in the US, visited Sderot and stopped at the police station memorial site. Marco Werman/The WorldShe added that people consume their news without taking the time to understand and learn about a place and all the complexities of it.
“It’s all very black and white and good and bad, and that’s just not how the world operates. We’re not like that as people. I can’t listen to the news. I’d rather be here, talk to people and educate myself in other ways,” Ben-Yosef said.
“I can’t listen to the news. I’d rather be here, talk to people and educate myself in other ways.”
Tamar Ben-Yosef, tourist in Israel
With war waging in Gaza just over the border, and the threat of rockets at any moment entering Israel, there’s a surreal factor here that Ben-Yosef said she reflects on a lot.
“I think that my existence has always been one of never knowing exactly where to stand. There’s my moral compass and values. And the situation doesn’t fit any of that. The Middle East is different because Israel exists for better or for worse,” Ben-Yosef said.
Israel’s history has not even reached the century mark. But the itinerary of places beset by violence feels like it’s outpaced the country’s age.
The debate in Israel over a temporary or permanent ceasefire continues.
Some say a ceasefire is tantamount to giving up and allowing the enemy to win. Others say giving Palestinians in Gaza respite from the fighting would enable them to bring aid into the besieged enclave.
After a burst of optimism earlier this week, hopes are fading that any deal might be reached soon.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that Israel is offering an “extraordinarily generous” deal and that, “the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and ceasefire is Hamas.”
But Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the Israeli military will conduct a ground invasion into Rafah, in the southern Gaza strip — whether or not there’s a ceasefire deal with Hamas.
Blinken plans to be in Israel this week, where he’s expected to push Netanyahu’s government to work toward ending the war, despite political forces trying to pull Israel’s prime minister in the opposite direction.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is welcomed by US Ambassador to Israel Jacob Lew, as he arrives at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, April 30, 2024.Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s far-right minister of national security, said he met with Netanyahu on Tuesday and told him that ending the war in Gaza is not acceptable, because it would mean that Israel loses.
“We are not ending the war,” Ben-Gvir declared.
Israeli national security Itamar Ben Gvir attends the weekly Cabinet meeting at the the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, Dec. 31, 2023.Abir Sultan/Pool Photo/APAnother far-right minister in Netanyahu’s coalition, Bezalel Smotrich, appeared to threaten to quit the government if the prime minister makes a deal to free the hostages. Smotrich said a ceasefire now would be like “waiving the white flag and granting victory to Hamas.”
But a negotiated deal is exactly what might be in the works.
“It seems we are the closest we were since this war began, with the exception of the previous prisoner exchange,” said Ehud Eiran, a political scientist at the University of Haifa.
Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, involving various other powers, are happening behind closed doors, Eiran said, but there have been signs of progress.
“Sources of optimism are reports that elements in the Israeli government are willing to go ahead, reports that Netanyahu is willing to give things he was unwilling to do before,” Eiran said. There have been leaks from the negotiators too, he added.
“I think also in the Israeli public, there’s a bit of early signs of being tired of the conflict.”
Israelis appear to have softened a couple of their demands, according to Khaled el-Gindy at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
“One is allowing people who have been evacuated to southern Gaza to return to their homes, or whatever may be left of their homes and neighborhoods, in north Gaza,” Gindy said.
“Up until now, Israel has not been keen to allow any significant number to return,” he added.
The second demand is some new language around these negotiations about a “sustainable calm,” Gindy said.
That’s a nod to one of Hamas’ principal demands — a permanent ceasefire. “It’s what the protest movement is demanding — what most people around the world are demanding — a permanent ceasefire,” he said.
Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking Hamas official who has represented the Palestinian militant group in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Istanbul, April 24, 2024.On Monday, the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, speaking in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said the deal being discussed now is for a “sustained” 40-day ceasefire, and that “thousands” of Palestinian prisoners could be set free in exchange for remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Gindy said it remains to be seen if Hamas will agree, because Israel has arrested and imprisoned thousands of Palestinian security suspects in recent months — mostly in the West Bank.
The Israelis could release those detainees in a Gaza deal, but they often rearrest them shortly thereafter, or detain them again, Gindy said.
“So, it’s unclear how useful that is. But it’s important symbolically for Palestinians because the prisoner issue is one that has touched almost every Palestinian family.”
There’s been speculation about the possibility of persuading Hamas leaders in Gaza to leave the territory in exchange for an end to the Israeli military’s monthslong campaign.
But Tarek Masoud of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government said that’s unlikely to happen.
“I just don’t see Hamas doing that. Hamas has never evinced a high degree of sensitivity to civilian casualties. And so, while I do think Hamas would want to see this war come to an end, they would probably not accept any condition that had them leaving the Gaza Strip,” Masoud said.
What Hamas probably wants at this point is to be able to declare some kind of victory, he added.
“I think they want to be able to say that they withstood Netanyahu’s assault on the territory, that they struck a blow against Israeli occupation — what they see as Israeli abuses of the Palestinian rights,” Masoud said.
An aircraft airdrops humanitarian aid over the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from central Gaza, April 30, 2024.Abdel Kareem Hana/APThe Biden administration has talked about an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage exchange as a step toward something much bigger — the revival of the long-stalled peace process aimed at getting to a two-state solution.
Since Oct. 7 last year, Blinken has met with officials from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But those governments have seemed hesitant to offer robust support for the administration’s postwar plans.
In the meantime, Netanyahu is also under pressure at home to find a way to get those hostages back home. Massive protests calling for a hostage deal across Israel continue.
People gather next to a sign displayed on the street that reads in Hebrew “Rafah can wait, they cannot”, in reference of a possible Israeli offensive on the Rafah, city in southern Gaza Strip, and calling for the release of the Israeli hostages held by the Hamas militant group, during a protest in Tel Aviv, April 29, 2024.Ohad Zwigenberg/APOn Monday, an editorial in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz declared, “It must be hoped that the current momentum will result in an agreement that will finally bring home the hostages, who have been held captive by Hamas in Gaza for over 200 days, and not end in bitter disappointment as previous negotiations have. Above all for the sake of the hostages and their families, but also for all Israelis, who want their return more than anything.”
Other members of the government coalition are also warning Netanyahu against walking away from a ceasefire deal that could finally save the lives of those still being held in Gaza.
On Sunday, the war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz, said, “If a responsible outline is reached for the return of the hostages with the backing of the entire security establishment — which does not involve ending the war — and the ministers who led the government on Oct. 7 prevent it, the government will have no right to continue to exist and lead the campaign.”
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Sixty or so tents are clustered in front of the Gothic-style Great Hall at The University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia. Some are spray-painted with popular slogans from the pro-Palestinian movement.
The encampment, inspired by US demonstrations, sprung up at the university about a week ago. Students here have also led protests and blocked traffic.
Declan Godwin is one of the Sydney protest’s organizers.
“It’s safe to say, without us, there wouldn’t be an encampment here, and it was a very simple case of us watching videos of students occupying their universities, and then, of police smashing those occupations up. Which inspired us to think, well, why don’t we just do the same thing here?” Godwin said.
Students across the globe appear to have had the same idea. In Paris earlier this week, police removed dozens of protesters who had occupied the main courtyard of Sorbonne University. At Sciences Po university, also in Paris, students blocked access to a campus building with makeshift barricades made from bicycles, plastic trash bins and planks of wood.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at University College London demanded an end to the war in Gaza. In Italy, violent clashes broke out with police at Sapienza University of Rome. Students there chained themselves together and went on a three-day hunger strike. And protest encampments are going up at universities in Canada and New Zealand.
In Sydney, protesters say they have no plans to leave anytime soon.
The pro-Palestinian encampment at The University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia, inspired by US demonstrations, sprung up about a week ago.Sarah Birnbaum/The World“We’re demanding the university cut ties with Israel through the strategic research partnerships the university has with weapons companies such as Thales, which is the sixth-largest weapons company in the world,” Godwin said.
Thales funds PhD programs at the university in the mechanical and electrical engineering departments. Thales also works with Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit systems to build drones that have been used in attacks on Gaza.
“Our university allows student and staff research to go towards perfecting that military technology, sometimes without the knowledge of staff and students who have been participating,” he explained.
The University of Sydney has indicated it won’t divest from firms that do business with Israel or boycott academic exchanges with Israeli universities.
The university declined a request to comment but sent a statement saying the school is committed to allowing peaceful protests, but warned anyone breaking the university’s rules would face disciplinary action.
Students at The University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia, are joining the protest movement against the Israel-Hamas war.Sarah Birnbaum/The WorldJasmine El Rawy, who represents Students for Palestine, said she feels what they’re doing on campus is significant.
“I was sent a photo that was taken in Gaza where someone had written in one of the tents, in one of the many refugee camps being set up, they wrote like, ‘Australia we see you, we hear you in Gaza.’ So, what we’re doing isn’t just a small thing at Sydney University but actually gives them hope as well.”
Rawy said that she wants people in Gaza to know that students around the world are standing with them, and watching what’s happening on campuses across the US, and she said that she’s eager to see that message spread.
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In the days following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, the US and other allies tried to isolate Russia’s economy by imposing major sanctions and restrictions.
Hundreds of companies from McDonald’s to Mercedes halted operations in Russia. The country was kicked out of the SWIFT international payment network. Within the first week, it looked like these measures had an impact and sent the Russian economy into a tailspin.
But after an initial tumble, Russia’s economy has stabilized.
Elvira Nabiullina, a longtime leader with Russia’s Central Bank, is credited with stabilizing the country’s economy and keeping Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine humming.
In this photo released by The State Duma, Lower House of the Russian Parliament Press Service, Russian Central Bank Chief Elvira Nabiullina delivers her speech at the State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament in Moscow, April 10, 2024.The State Duma, The Federal Assembly of The Russian Federation Press Service/AP“Russia’s economy shifted to war-economy mode,” said Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Nabiullina, her credentials, her experience, her understanding of conventional monetary and macro policy, have been very important to stabilizing Russia’s economy. Her policies align with Putin’s interests.”
Today, Russia’s key interest rate is high at 16%, but the country’s inflation rate remains manageable.
“The war and the war effort has really amplified the role of the state within Russia’s economy, the role of the military, and military procurement within that economy,” Ziemba said.
People walk past a newly opened Maag store, a former Zara flagship store, in Moscow, Aug. 21, 2023. The economy’s resilience in the face of bruising Western sanctions is a major factor behind President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power in Russia.Alexander Zemlianichenko/APIn a meeting last year, Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusian strongman leader and Putin’s closest ally, praised Nabiullina.
“Even our enemies say that Elvira Nabiullina was able to manage the Russian economy, overcome the currency problems, despite the sanctions,” he said.
A man buys fruit at a hypermarket in Moscow, on Nov. 3, 2023. The shelves at Moscow supermarkets are full of fruit and vegetables, cheese and meat. The economy’s resilience in the face of bruising Western sanctions is a major factor behind President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power in Russia.Photo/APSanctions are only as powerful as the set of coalitions that impose them, Ziemba pointed out.
“There’s a whole bunch of countries that are quite willing to take Russia’s money and buy goods. I mean, the global economy is not united against Russia to say that invading the neighbor is not OK.”
Russia has pivoted away from Europe, significantly increasing trade with countries like India and China.
And, Ziemba said, Russia is still making billions selling oil and gas.
“Global leaders, including the United States, recognized that the global economy wasn’t ready to do without Russia’s commodity exports, and so they made a choice to try to keep Russian oil, Russian metals, Russian grain, Russian fertilizer on the market, but pay them less for it,” she said.
All of these factors demonstrate the limits of what sanctions can do to inflict damage on a large economy, Ziemba said.
In fact, the International Monetary Fund recently reported that it expects Russia’s economy will grow more than 3% this year, surpassing all of the world’s advanced economies, including the US.
But that doesn’t mean that Russia’s economy will remain on good footing.
Russia’s war effort could create new economic problems,” according to Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center who used to work at Russia’s Central Bank.
“The amount of state expenses depends on how much money Russia is going to spend on the military, and this also creates some risks for the budget,” Prokopenko said, adding that depending on the situation on the front lines, the Kremlin may feel pressure to spend more on the military.
It’s already spending a lot of cash to recruit more men to join the army, which is causing problems in the labor market.
A Russian soldier clears his armored vehicle parked at Tverskaya street prior to a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, April 26, 2024. The parade will take place at Moscow’s Red Square on May 9 to celebrate 79 years of the victory in World War II.Dmitry Serebryakov/APRussia desperately needs workers and three major powers — the army, the civil sector, and military manufacturers — are all competing now for workers on the Russian market, Prokopenko said. As a result, wages are growing, but this dynamic may not be sustainable.
“All of this is pushing up wages, all of this is creating huge consumer demand, all of this is a cause of inflation. Big inflation is a problem for Putin,” Prokopenko said.
As of right now, the Kremlin has been able to balance its budget. But Prokopenko said that during a time of war, there are many unknowns that could create a shock to the system — like a tightening of sanction enforcement, a drop in oil prices, or an unforeseen development on the battlefield.
Such conditions pose major risks to Russia’s wartime economy, and can quickly make it look much more vulnerable than it does now.
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In Su-lay Su’s room at the Houri Center in northeastern Syria, which he shares with nine other boys, the wall is adorned with artwork: a painting of a sunset, a winter scene and his favorite soccer team, Barcelona.
Su-lay Su, 22, has been stuck at the Houri Center in northeastern Syria for the last 5 ½ years. The rehabilitation center holds about 100 boys and young men who are believed to have connections to ISIS.
ISIS used children in its propaganda. It trained some of them to fight on the battlefield. They even had a nickname: “cubs of the caliphate” — referring to the area that ISIS controlled. Today, five years since the group was defeated, hundreds of these children and youths up to the age of 22 remain detained in Syria.
But Su-lay Su said he never fought for ISIS or did any propaganda for the terrorist group. Instead, he said a series of whirlwind events when he was about 12 years old upended his life in Trinidad and eventually led him here.
As Su-lay Su tells it, his mother, Gailon Su, long separated from his father, converted to Islam, and then, remarried. Gailon and her new husband, Anthony Hamlet, decided to take the family on a trip. So, on a hot, September day in 2014, they packed their bags and after a few different flights, made it to Turkey.
Su-lay Su and his mother didn’t know it then, but they were being taken into ISIS territory. Soon after, Hamlet separated from Gailon Su, and after that, it was just Su-lay Su and his mother fending for themselves in a foreign country under ISIS rule.
Their nightmare, he said, had just begun. “There’s no way to go back [home], you know, [my mother] doesn’t know how to speak Arabic. I don’t know how to speak Arabic. And no one is helping us.”
Su-lay Su said he started to make friends on the streets and picked up some Arabic from them.
His mom lived with other women, and under ISIS’ strict interpretation of Islam, he was too old to stay with them.
“Half of my life in ISIS, I lived in a mosque. I never really had a house to stay in. Sometimes, maybe a room.”
In 2016, the pair moved to Raqqa, the capital of the so-called caliphate in northern Syria. They survived on a small, monthly stipend that ISIS distributed to foreign divorcees or widows.
Su-lay Su’s surrender to SDFAs Su-lay Su got older, other ISIS women pressured his mom to send him to fight. He said that he didn’t want to do that, so they avoided going out much.
By then, he’d managed to get a phone, which was their only connection to the outside world. They would download movies to watch.
Although he and his mom had some good times, he said, “it’s really shifty. Sometimes you hear bombings around you.”
In 2017, the US-led coalition began an operation to push ISIS out of Raqqa. Su-lay Su said that the bombing got so intense, they were forced to evacuate to another area called Deir-el-Zour.
“And then, you know, it’s even worse than before.”
Su-lay Su said that he wanted to surrender to the other side — the Kurdish fighters called the SDF. But Gailon Su worried that ISIS could capture and kill him.
“So, she dressed me as a girl in black clothing. I wore a hijab, and we saw some Syrian family [that] were leaving, walking out of ISIS.”
Su-lay Su explained that ISIS fighters allowed women to pass but if they saw a man, they would take him. His mother told him to pretend he could not talk, as if he was deaf, to ensure that he would pass.
On an early December morning in 2018, Su-lay Su and Gailon Su and a group of other families started making their way out of ISIS territory, treading carefully amid mines all over, and airstrikes.
“We surrendered ourselves,” Su-lay Su said.
When the soldiers asked each woman where they came from, Su-lay Su didn’t know if he should answer because his mother had instructed him not to speak.
Su-lay Su plays the guitar in his room at the Houri Center in northeastern Syria.Mohammed Hassan“I just tried to put on the voice of a girl, and I said, ‘America.’”
It didn’t take long for Su-lay Su’s cover to be blown by the SDF.
Su-lay Su and his mother were separated that day in December 2018. Su-lay Su said that for about a year, he didn’t know if she was dead or alive. He was moved to two prison facilities before the SDF brought him to the Houri Center.
Su-lay Su continues to claim that he is from the US, but The World couldn’t verify this and found no evidence of this. The State Department said it doesn’t comment on specific cases.
One expert said that Su-lay Su might be saying he’s American in hopes of getting better treatment at the Houri Center.
‘A grave injustice’Su-lay Su tried to find out about his mom’s whereabouts every day. Finally, in February 2020, Su-lay Su got a letter from Gailon Su saying that she was alive and in one of the camps for families of ISIS. A few days later, she came to visit him.
“I saw her. I hugged her. We stayed together for like an hour and a half. We spoke to each other. That was one of the best days for me in Syria.”
Su-lay Su isn’t allowed to have a cellphone or any connectivity with the outside world, aside from periodic calls from his mom.
Ahmad Lawand, who heads the Houri Center, said in Kurdish that the boys and young men there were trained by ISIS. Some were fighting on the front lines and were injured, he said, adding that the center provides medical treatment to those who still need it.
The boys and young men stay at the center until they turn 23. Then, they’re transferred to an adult prison. That means that next year, Su-lay Su will be sent to an adult prison.
Lawand said in the adult prisons, the environment reverses all the work they have done at the rehabilitation center.
“I can’t see that somebody like Su-lay Su is any kind of security threat at all.”
Simon Cottee, who teaches criminology at the University of Kent in the UK, has done extensive research on ISIS fighters from outside Syria, especially those from Trinidad.
“The children of the caliphate were absolutely key to the whole Islamic State. The actual caliphate, in some ways, was a very strange world in which the whole concept of childhood didn’t exist. Boys as young as 8, 9, 10, were enlisted into the Islamic State’s machinery of war.”
Cottee said that he hasn’t found anything that would dispute Su-lay Su’s claims.
“I have no evidence that he was involved in any fighting or propaganda. Nothing to indicate that he’d actually been radicalized or that he’d participated in any combat.”
He added, “I think it’s a grave injustice, it’s a travesty that he’s still there.”
In fact, many experts say that these children and adolescents being held should be treated as victims of ISIS.
‘I’m not a terrorist’Ben Saul, a United Nations expert on Human Rights and Counter Terrorism, said that he doesn’t see the Houri Center as a place of rehabilitation.
“I don’t think that it’s possible for meaningful rehabilitation to take place under detention conditions when you’re held in the territory of a nonstate actor in the middle of a war zone.”
Saul said that these children and adolescents need to be in their homes and communities where they have support from their families and friends.
Separating them from their mothers is another problem, he said. Gailon Su is still in a camp called Roj about two hours drive from the Houri Center.
Saul said he raises this issue of detained children in northern Syria with officials from their countries of origin, but they seem to have washed their hands of the problem.
“Many governments just don’t seem to understand the sense of urgency needed to repatriate large numbers of people.
Children should not have to spend their whole childhood in detention, Saul said.
Outside the Houri Center in northeastern Syria.Mohammed HassanFor Su-lay Su, hopes of one day leaving Syria, and also becoming a professional soccer player, have waned over the past couple of years.
Su-lay Su blames his stepfather for robbing him of a normal childhood. But he also wants to look forward instead of backward. And, he said he wants to set the record straight about his trajectory from Trinidad to Syria.
“When I was back home, I didn’t know there was a country called Syria. I didn’t know anything about what’s going on. I want people to know that I’m not a terrorist. If I get outside, I don’t want someone to look at me and say, ‘Oh, this guy, he was in ISIS and he wants to kill people and stuff like that. He wants to blow himself up. That’s not me.”
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Paul Ouellet considers himself a car guy. He has three cars — a Lexus, a BMW and a vintage Mercedes. And like many Toronto car people, he’s taking extraordinary measures to protect his vehicles from thieves.
The type of Lexus he drives is one of Canada’s most stolen cars, so he installs a steering wheel lock at night. He has also installed several security cameras, burglar alarms, two separate GOS systems and Apple Air Tags.
Recently, he spent about $4,500 to install three retractable steel posts called bollards to stop thieves from driving one of his cars off his property.
Someone has already tried to steal his Lexus twice. The thieves ran away when the alarm system went off. But Ouellet figures they’ll probably try again.
“You work hard for what you have, and you know, I enjoy my cars, so I’m going to make it as difficult as possible for them to get this car,” he said. “I’m being proactive as a consumer to do the best I can so that I can go to sleep at night.”
Canada is experiencing an epidemic of auto theft. Nationwide, car thefts increased 24% in 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
In Toronto, Canada’s largest city, thefts have doubled in the last five years — 12,000 cars were stolen, which is equal to 1 vehicle every 40 minutes. Violent incidents have also increased. The number of carjackings in Toronto so far this year has doubled from last year.
It’s not unusual for thieves to return to the same location several times, often to steal the new car that replaced the one they’ve already taken.
“Toronto became the candy store for would-be thieves,” said Fred Marcantino, who develops technology to thwart auto theft.
He said most thieves belong to organized gangs who know what they’re doing and can easily bypass a car’s electronic ignition system. Most of the vehicles go by rail to Montreal, where they’re shipped to Africa and the Middle East.
“These guys are professionals. They’re able to take a car in less than a minute without causing any personal damage or needing the actual keys of the vehicle,” he said.
Marcantino is vice president of Tag Tracking, a Montreal company that sells sophisticated vehicle tracking devices. This kind of device is commonly used in Quebec because insurance companies there require it for cars that are stolen most often. But it’s far less common in Ontario, and Marcantino said thieves are taking advantage of that.
“I call it the escalator effect. If there’s the stairs and the escalator, most people take the escalator because it’s much easier.”
Fred Marcantino, vice president of the Montreal-based company, Tag Tracking,
“I call it the escalator effect,” he said. “If there’s the stairs and the escalator, most people take the escalator because it’s much easier.”
The police in Ontario have created a joint task force to combat auto theft, and the Canadian government is spending nearly $100 million to help. In early April, the police announced they’d recovered nearly 600 vehicles in containers ready to be shipped overseas.
Car owner Samantha Hodder said that’s great news, but theft in her leafy West Toronto neighborhood is rampant, and she won’t relax until the number of incidents starts going down.
“I personally know five people who’ve had their cars stolen, and they live within a 10-block radius of this house,” she said.
Her Toyota Highlander hybrid was stolen twice from her driveway. She got it back both times. After that, she installed a myriad of anti-theft devices. One morning, she realized her new security camera had captured another attempted theft.
“Someone went up to my car, tried the door handle, kind of looked in, and thought, ‘well, no,’” she said. “But then the camera could also see across the street. And I could see that someone was in someone else’s car. The hatchback was back; they were rummaging, and I could see someone else walking by. There were maybe four or five of them together.”
Hodder said she now locks her car in a garage several blocks away to keep it safe.
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Toomaj Salehi stands out because he speaks his mind. Now, he could pay the ultimate price.
This week, the 33-year-old Iranian rapper was sentenced to death by a revolutionary court in Isfahan, his attorney said.
Salehi is known for his unflinching lyrics and criticism of both the Iranian government and the upper classes. In September of 2022, Salehi also emerged as a leading voice in support of protests following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
“We are horrified at this outrageous death sentence,” said Nassim Papayianni, a campaigner for Amnesty International. “His trial before a revolutionary court in Isfahan was grossly unfair.”
At least eight people have been executed in Iran over charges related to the Amini protests. Several people remain on death row.
“We are seeing the authorities in Iran continue to wield the death penalty as a tool of political repression to stifle and instill fear in the public as an attempt to keep their grip on power,” Papayianni said.
In September of 2022, Iranian morality police arrested 22-year-old Amini for allegedly wearing a compulsory hijab incorrectly. She was severely beaten and died, sparking nationwide protests that continued for months.
Salehi documented the moment in a song, called “Battlefield.”
Screenshot from the song “Here is the Battlefield,” by Iranian rapper Tamooj Salehi. Iranian Protests Live Information/Facebook“We turn a deaf ear to the dictator with the instrument of women’s rights, life freedom./We fight to the death,” he rapped.
An Iranian DJ living in Istanbul, whose name isn’t being used for his safety, said that from the first time he heard Salehi’s work, he knew it was something different.
“You could clearly tell how educated he is. You could tell the high quality of his technique and the music that he produced,” this DJ said through a translator.
It’s fluid and confident. Salehi is not one to hide behind a metaphor. His work is brave, the DJ said, not just because of his words, but because he knew what the consequences would be, and he continued to release music from inside Iran.
“In America, for example, hip-hop is used there to speak out to authority as well. But we can see that people can have their own microphone there and criticize whoever they want in authority, and nothing can happen to them,” this DJ said.
Rapper Toomaj Salehi from Iran. REMPN/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 4.0In Iran, writing music with political messages takes no small amount of courage. Shows are banned, mixtapes are sold in secret or through online torrents, and artists have faced prison time for their work. As a result, many artists — including this DJ — have moved to Turkey.
As outrage over Amini’s death spread to cities across Iran, artists abroad formed a group to amplify voices from the protests and bring international attention to the cause. Salehi’s posts were a major part of this campaign.
“We would take shifts, so that we wouldn’t let the social media attention slow down,” the DJ said.
As Salehi released videos of himself participating in the protests, he would include helpful information for protesters, like places where police were stationed. He shared advice on how to keep a phone from being tracked by authorities.
“In the worst and most-dangerous situation, he proved to be the one he always described in his songs,” the DJ said. “He was always outside, always in the front line, with the people.”
But Salehi knew he was being hunted by the government. For weeks, he moved from safe house to safe house.
On Oct. 30, 2022, security forces descended on the place where he was hiding, arresting him and two friends. Days later, Iranian state media released a video of him, bloodied and blindfolded, saying he made a mistake.
After more than a year in detention, Iran’s Supreme Court found issues with Salehi’s case and allowed him to be released — though he was arrested again two weeks later on new charges of “propaganda against the state.”
His latest death sentence — handed down by a Isfahan revolutionary court — was described as “unprecedented” by his attorney, who said they will appeal the ruling.
“He was living his art,” said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
She pointed to an Instagram video recorded before Salehi’s arrest, but posted by his friends afterward, where the rapper describes his mission and work.
“The upper classes have a voice enough./I think rap is the voice of suffocated throats,” he said.
Salehi has long served as a voice for disillusioned youth in Iran, Dagres said. She believes that his ongoing detention shows that Iran’s crackdown on the Amini protests is failing.
“When they’re doing this, it’s because they want to silence dissent. But people are still protesting, they’re still vocal. And that, to me, signals that what [the authorities] are doing is not working. Silence is no longer an option,” Dagres said.
A week before his 2022 arrest, Salehi released another song, called “Faal.” The title is a reference to fortunes told through the patterns that coffee grinds make when you turn your cup upside down.
In the music video, Salehi is dressed all in white — standing in a desert as the sun sets.
“In the video, which was filmed, again in Iran — you see him sitting across from an Iranian official. And he’s rapping and he’s reading the coffee grinds to tell the Islamic republic’s future and that it’s not going to survive,” Dagres said.
“How many young people do you kill to build a tower for yourself?” Salehi raps. “Someone’s crime was dancing her hair in the wind – someone’s crime was that she was brave and has criticized.”
“While in prison, Salehi once asked his father, ‘Dad, is anyone out there talking about me?’” Dagres recalled.
“After the terrible news of his death sentence, the whole world now knows Toomaj Salehi’s name.”
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On a recent day at a community center in Raqqa, in northeastern Syria, Wafaa Mustafa sat with her two daughters, 8-year-old Istabraq and 6-year-old Mardia.
Mustafa, who also goes by Um Yusuf, was wearing a black abaya (gown) and a black face covering. Both girls wore their light chestnut hair in ponytails. With a red bow in her hair and a leopard jacket, Istabraq came off as the fashionista.
Istabraq, 8, and Mardia, 6, sit together at a community center in Raqqa, Syria. Mohammed Hassan/The WorldThe girls were born toward the end of ISIS’ rule here in Raqqa. Their father, Russell Dennison, was born in New Hampshire and lived in Redding, Pennsylvania.
He converted to Islam and left the US for the Middle East to pursue a religious path.
By 2014, Dennison was in Syria, in the middle of a raging civil war and witnessing the rise of ISIS. The brutal terror group captured territory in Iraq and Syria and established what they called a caliphate — an Islamic society run by Sharia law.
Dennison eventually joined ISIS and became part of their propaganda unit.
During the height of ISIS’ rule in 2015, about 30,000 foreign fighters went to Syria to fight for the group. Most were from Europe and Asia. About 300 Americans joined or attempted to join ISIS.
Mustafa who lived in Raqqa city under ISIS’ control at the time, said she met Dennison through mutual friends. Dennison was looking for a religious wife, she explained.
“At the beginning, our life in Raqqa was quite nice,” she said. Dennison spent most of his day on his laptop. His time as a fighter had been cut short after he was shot in the leg.
In the period ISIS was in power between 2014 and 2019, ISIS carried out massacres in Iraq and Syria. Its fighters beheaded journalists, raped women and threw people off the roofs of buildings.
ISIS also forced women to marry its fighters and kept some of them as slaves.
But Mustafa said she wasn’t forced to marry Dennison. In fact, she found him intriguing — an Arabic-speaking, red-headed American who said he’d come to her country to learn about Islam.
She said Dennison talked a lot about the great life he had in America, how he learned about and converted to Islam and how his family’s behavior toward him changed after that.
The best memory Mustafa has about her time with Dennison was the trip they took to neighboring Iraq, to the city of Mosul, where it was warm and beautiful, she said.
But by 2017, things started to take a turn.
The US-led coalition was bombing Raqqa relentlessly. The family moved around, trying to dodge the bombings. Eventually, it became too much. Mustafa and her daughters fled the area and ended up in a camp for families of ISIS members in Syria.
She described a difficult life in the camp, where it was cold and rainy.
One day, a friend of hers shared the devastating news that Dennison had been killed in an airstrike. Mustafa said since she hasn’t seen his body with her own eyes, she likes to think he’s still alive.
‘Trail of misery’Investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson stayed in touch with Dennison until his death in Syria.
Over a period of six months, Dennison recorded a trove of voice messages explaining his motivation for joining ISIS as well as his daily life and shared them with Aaronson.
“I realized that as I was communicating with Russell over these months, there was a great likelihood that any of our conversations would be the last. That there was a good chance that he would be killed,” Aaronson said.
These recordings provided a rare look into his life as an ISIS fighter. Aaronson eventually made a podcast about Dennison’s life called “American ISIS.”
Screenshot of American Russell Dennison, who joined ISIS while living in Syria. Intercept/YouTubeHe said Dennison “wasn’t just some cartoonish man who wanted to cut people’s heads off. This was a man who went to Syria to try to find himself and find a life, and he believed he was fighting for this greater cause.”
But in the end, Aaronson said, “he left behind on Earth this kind of trail of misery,” referring to his widow and children.
‘We have no future’Mustafa lives with her parents now. She and her two kids sleep in a small room, she said.
She tried to connect with Dennison’s family in Florida, but they didn’t want to be in touch. The World also reached out to Dennison’s mother, but she did not respond.
“We have no future,” Mustafa said. “At least the US should help these girls,” she said. “Aren’t they American?”
Families who have ties to ISIS are often ostracized in communities in Syria and Iraq. Only one of the girls is going to school, she said, because the other one doesn’t have any official documents.
At its height, ISIS ruled over about 10 million people in Iraq and Syria. Its leaders promised an Islamic society based on justice and care for the people.
But that turned out to be far from the truth.
Today, ISIS might officially be eliminated in the region. But it continues to leave its mark on the people in the region and beyond.
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About 10 miles west of the Iraqi border sits the sprawling camp called al-Hol, which was named after a nearby town.
After passing miles of empty, green plains and a few checkpoints guarded by armed men, rows upon rows of white tents appear, with some bearing the logos of the United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNHCR.
A screenshot from drone footage of the white-covered tents at al-Hol camp, a detention center where people with alleged ties to ISIS are being held in northern Syria. Mohammed Hassan/The WorldBarbed wire and watch towers separate the camp from the outside world.
Men in military uniforms guard the entrance. Balaclavas cover their faces and they carry guns, while a badge on their uniforms reads “ISIS hunters.”
Men in military uniforms guard the entrance to al-Hol camp in northern Syria. Shirin Jaafari/The WorldISIS no longer holds territory here but attacks like the one recently on a concert hall in Russia indicate that the group is still capable of large-scale attacks. In Syria, where ISIS originated, it continues to be active. One strategy to contain ISIS has been to hold upwards of 60,000 people with suspected ISIS ties in about two dozen detention and rehabilitation camps.
When The World visited the camp in March, the guards asked for papers before allowing entrance into the camps (with two armed guards as escorts). Journalists can’t walk around here without protection.
A guard at al-Hol camp at the entrance. Mohammed Hassan/The WorldViolence is part of daily life, said one camp official who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak with the media. Sometimes, residents with more radical views and stronger support for ISIS want to impose their ideology on others, she said.
ISIS members follow Jihadi-Salafist ideology — a Sunni fundamentalist movement. In 2014, ISIS fighters captured territory in Iraq and Syria and established what they called a caliphate, which is an Islamic society run by Sharia law.
The camp deals daily with crime and personal disputes. In 2021, the charity Save The Children described this place as one of the most-dangerous in the world. Security has improved somewhat since then, camp officials say.
On the surface, life goes on.
At a market selling everything from fresh herbs to hair dye and nail clippers, women wearing black from head-to-toe inspected the products.
A woman sells herbs at the market in al-Hol camp in northern Syria. Mohammed Hassan/The WorldTheir faces were covered but some had a look of exhaustion in their eyes.
Women at the market at al-Hol camp in northern Syria. Mohammed Hassan/The WorldAbout half of the 40,000 people who live here are children, according to the United Nations.
One woman who was holding a baby girl said her daughter has been sick for days.
A woman at al-Hol camp holds her child, whom she says has been sick for days. Mohammed Hassan/The WorldAn older man complained about the lack of health care at the camp. In the summer, temperatures rise to more than 100 degrees and the tents have no cooling systems.
A man at al-Hol camp says the health care here is inadequate. Shirin Jaafari/The WorldThe Kurdish administration that controls northeastern Syria oversees these camps.
Jinan Hanna, who works with the administration in charge of al-Hol, said that these camps need protection.
“ISIS is not gone,” she said. “They are still active in the camps and outside.”
Hanna said that the Kurds have fought shoulder to shoulder with the Americans against ISIS, and that protecting these camps is the “human and ethical thing to do.”
But since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, militia groups in Iraq who oppose US support for Israel have targeted American forces based in Syria.
These attacks have once again raised questions about whether the US should remain in Syria.
According to a recent report by Amnesty International, the US is involved in most aspects of the detention system. It funds everything from building these facilities to repairing them and training security guards.
Some detainees told Amnesty International they were tortured and mistreated.
A scene at the market in al-Hol camp, northern Syria. Mohammed Hassan/The WorldThe World reached out to the State Department. Officials said they were “deeply concerned about human rights abuses in Syria.”
“We continue to urge all actors in Syria to respect human rights, treat all detainees humanely, protect civilians, and respond appropriately to allegations of abuse and civilian harm,” they wrote.
They also urged countries to take back their citizens.
Hanna said the departure of the American military would cause a lot of problems with security at the camp.
“We, the Kurds, are guarding our enemy,” she said.
Life at Roj campOn a rainy day at Roj camp, a woman named Wajda sat in a dark, damp tent filled on one side with pots and pans for her makeshift kitchen.
“I have never ever done anything to hurt anybody anywhere,” said Wajda, who did not want to use her full name in this story or provide specific details about her past because she said that she has pending legal cases.
She lived in al-Hol for three years before being transferred about a year ago to Roj camp, the second-largest in Syria, which is located about two hours north.
Roj holds about 3,000 foreign families of ISIS; 65% of them are children, according to the United Nations. There are women and children here from South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as others.
A girl crosses the path at Roj camp, the second-largest camp in northern Syria, two hours north of al-Hol camp. Mohammed Hassan/The WorldWajda said she was born and raised in the United Kingdom, and then moved to the city of Baghouz in Syria, where she got injured in an explosion. A piece of shrapnel cut through her back.
“I was in a coma. I could talk no more. I could walk no more,” she said.
After three weeks in a coma, Wajda woke up to learn that she was partially paralyzed. She could not remember some names, she said. Her speech was slurred.
To this day, she said, she suffers from pain. She apologized frequently for talking slowly.
Wajda’s 7-year-old son was born under ISIS. She said he’s only known a life of fear, displacement and stigma. She doesn’t let him play outside much because it’s too dangerous, she said.
“I really want to go home so he can start school, have friends. He’s my son, so I want the best for him.”
She keeps that hope alive to stave off feelings of depression, she said.
‘It’s like Guantanamo on an epic scale’ Several countries have taken back their citizens, including the US, which has repatriated 40 citizens since 2016, according to the State Department.
But many still remain in limbo at these camps.
Thanassis Cambanis is the director of Century International, a progressive think tank based in New York.
“No one wants to take these people back,” Cambanis said. “And we end up with this very jury-rigged arrangement where the US, working with Syrian Kurds, has set up a ‘statelet’ whose main strategic benefit to the US — and to many others — is that it acts as an indefinite holding pen for ISIS people.”
Cambanis said that some of these people are genuinely committed ISIS members who believe in the ideology, and some even look forward to having another chance to establish a caliphate.
“But this is how society works. We don’t get to just park in a twilight zone of 50,000 or 65,000 people who have beliefs that we don’t like.”
He compares these camps to Guantanamo, but the difference is that in Syria, there are thousands of women and children locked up at these camps.
“It’s like Guantanamo on an epic scale,” he said. “To have this many people who are basically told that the plan is forever for them and their kids to live without any legal status, and they’ve neither been convicted of any crimes, nor in many cases, are even allowed to get passports to countries they’re from.”
Instead, countries should set up a process, he said, to identify criminals among the camp population and charge and prosecute them in courts.
Outside Wajda’s tent, the rain didn’t stop the kids from playing.
When the kids spotted a plane flying above — likely an American one, given the proximity of the camp to American bases — they waved.
One yelled that maybe the plane would swoop down and rescue his friends from the camp.
And they all laughed.
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Rosa Poulbot, a mother of four, has lived in the Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis for 34 years. Her centuryold house stands on a narrow backstreet just a few minutes walk from the newly constructed Olympic village.
The densely populated district of Seine-Saint-Denis is where most of the Olympic Games will be hosted this summer. It’s also one of the poorest districts in Paris and has the highest number of immigrants.
Paris won the bid to host this summer’s Olympics, in part, on a promise to rejuvenate the district.
On her roof, Poulbot has erected a makeshift white sign that reads (in French): “The Olympic Games 2024. Environmental excellence means 40% more air pollution, 50% more noise for the 700 children and 2,000 residents.”
Poulbot isn’t opposed to the games but said all the construction in the lead-up to the event has been intolerable.
Rosa Poulbot with a sign above her house that reads: “The Olympic Games 2024. Environmental excellence means 40% more air pollution, 50% more noise for 700 children and 2,000 residents. We thank you for the new (motorway) interchange!”Orla Barry/The World“I have a lot more noise, a lot more dust, a lot more fumes, from exhaust pipes. I have cracks on the walls, on the ceilings that I never had before.”
Eighty percent of investment for the Olympic Games has been focused on this sprawling district. The two main construction projects — the Olympic Village and the Aquatics Center — are both situated there.
Mathieu Hanotin, mayor of Saint-Denis, has heard complaints like Poulbot’s before but he said the vast majority of local residents are excited about the Games.
“There is great pride in hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games here and [the residents] think that the games can do a lot for the area in the future.”
Seine-Saint-Denis has long struggled to overcome its troubled reputation. The district — known in France as departments — has one of the highest levels of unemployment in France with an estimated one-third of its 1.6 million residents living below the poverty line. In 2005, riots sparked by the deaths of two teenagers fleeing police kicked off in the suburb before spreading throughout the Paris region for more than three weeks.
The district took a further battering in international media in 2022 when football fans were attacked and robbed during a chaotic UEFA Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid.
Mayor Mathieu Hanotin acknowledges that the area has considerable social problems but he sees the Games as an opportunity to change the narrative. It’s a chance to show people another side of Saint-Denis and to remind everyone of the historic importance of this town, he explained.
“The roots of French history are here.”
Mathieu Hanotin, mayor of Saint-Denis
“Most of the kings of France are buried here in Saint-Denis, in the basilica. The roots of French history are here.”
Mayor Mathieu Hanotin overlooking the Basilica of Saint-Denis.Orla Barry/The WorldParis won the Olympic bid with a promise to deliver a cheaper, greener sporting event than previous hosts.
So far, the budget — which is fast approaching $10 billion — is still below the price tag of the Games when they were held in London, Tokyo or Rio de Janeiro. A big chunk of the money has gone toward building the Olympic Village with investment by property developers, bringing the total cost to around $2.2 billion.
Dominique Perrault, whose architecture firm led the design, said they focused on how Seine-Saint-Denis would look after the Games, not just on servicing the athletes’ needs. The village was built as a prototype for future development in the area, he said. The roughly 40 low-rise tower blocks will house about 14,500 athletes and their support teams over the course of the games. The eco-friendly village is built on a former industrial zone along the River Seine and all its energy will come from heat pumps and renewables.
A sign in Saint-Denis.Orla Barry/The WorldBut its construction has not been without controversy.
Seine-Saint-Denis has the largest number of squats and informally built slums of any department in the country, according to a 2021 report by the housing authority. It’s estimated that about 60 squats were shut down in 2023 alone.
The Seine-Saint-Denis branch of France’s interior ministry said the evictions were not related to the Games but part of normal legal procedures.
But organizations like Le Revers De Medaille (Reverse Side of the Medal), a charity that aids vulnerable people, said it finds that difficult to believe. Jhila Prentis, a spokesperson for the group and a volunteer with United Migrants said the evictions were also a symbol of how the French government views refugees and asylum-seekers.
“It’s bigger than trying to make the city look nice and shiny for the tourists.”
Jhila Prentis, spokesperson, Le Revers De Medaille
“It’s bigger than trying to make the city look nice and shiny for the tourists. I think the deeper cause is just a very hostile political attitude towards immigrants,” Prentis said.
Jhila Prentis outside the Vichy-sur-Seine squat.Orla Barry/The WorldLast year hundreds of refugees, asylum-seekers and homeless people were evicted from a squat in L’Île-Saint-Denis, near the Olympic village. More than 150 of them moved into an abandoned building in Vitry-sur-Seine in the southeast of Paris, expanding the squat’s occupants to over 450.
Prentis said 80% of them have refugee status and many have full-time jobs but finding private rental accommodations is a real struggle. Plus, racist attitudes among landlords is an ongoing issue, she said.
“The refugees say, ‘if you’re called Mohammed, don’t bother trying to find a flat.’ Many have money in their accounts and regular money coming in but they just can’t seem to get a flat. It’s really absurd,” Prentis said.
Police evictionsA few days ago, dozens of police descended on the Vichy-sur-Seine squat at 8 a.m. and evicted all the residents.
Among them were 20 children and 50 women. Prentis said the majority were from Africa, from countries like Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Some were bused to other French cities like Bordeaux and Orléans. Others were offered temporary housing in the surrounding Île-de-France region.
But Prentis said most were offered only a one-month housing contract, which means many are likely to end up back on the streets by mid-May.
French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra said that the eviction was not linked to the Olympics.
“These policies were implemented before the Games and they will be implemented after the Games,” she said.
Local history teacher Alexandre Schon outside the Olympic Village in Saint-Denis.Orla Barry/The WorldControversy around the construction of the Olympic Village doesn’t just revolve around evictions.
The 2,800 new units that will house the athletes are set to be converted into permanent homes for up to 6,000 people by the end of 2025. More than 50% of inhabitants in Saint-Denis live in social housing but only around a quarter of the new Olympic Village apartments are expected to be available for this type of accommodation.
Local history teacher Alexandre Schon said the vast majority of people living in the area will not be able to afford to buy any of the new flats. Schon, who is a member of a group called Olympics 2024 Vigilance, said he worries about the potential gentrification of Saint-Denis. He bought an apartment in the area three years ago, but said today he could no longer afford it.
“This is my area. It’s my city. But the price of the apartment now would be too expensive for me.”
Saint-Denis Mayor Mathieu Hanotin said the Olympic Games cannot be blamed for the price rises. There’s a housing crisis across France, he said, and the Olympic Village was never built as a “social housing village.”
Saint-Denis already has 52% of its inhabitants living in social housing, so the challenge is to build a balanced neighborhood model that would reflect how the town could look in the future, he said.
Preparations are underway in Saint-Denis for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.Orla Barry/The WorldA massive soon-to-delivered extension of the metro system into Seine-Saint-Denis will also make the area more attractive for developers and would-be home buyers. Earlier this year, Elon Musk said Tesla was moving its headquarters to the district.
Hanotin said many more people will soon be traveling to Saint-Denis for work.
“Our challenge is to encourage them to stay and live here,” he said. “We want to create a place with a lot of solidarity. But for that to work, there must be people who earn money living alongside people who earn a little less. Otherwise, it’s not solidarity, it’s social separatism.”
History teacher Schon plans to leave Saint-Denis while the Games are underway to avoid the influx of visitors, the large police presence and the restrictions in the area.
“It’s not my Olympic Games, it’s the Olympic Games for the rich, for the powerful. It’s not the Olympic Games for all,” he said.
But Mayor Mathieu Hanotin disagrees.
“The Games are for everyone,” he responded. “And I hope when visitors come to watch events in the Aquatics Center or the Stade de France that they also take the time to look around our town and visit our famous basilica. They will see that Seine-Saint-Denis has so much more to offer than what you read in the news.”
Léontine Gallois contributed to this report.
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The US Congress has just passed a bill that could lead to a ban on the Chinese-owned video app TikTok. Europe’s cracking down, too — not just on TikTok but also on its new spin-off platform, TikTok Lite.
The lite version is slightly different from what most TikTok users know the app to be. This new version pays people to watch videos.
Jennifer Gay, a TikTok content creator, sits outside the US Capitol, April 23, 2024.Mariam Zuhaib/AP“It’s totally nuts,” Spanish YouTuber Feliking told his 150,000 subscribers earlier this month. “They will literally pay you to watch videos. You’ll accumulate more and more coins for as long as you can hang in there.”
So far, it’s available in Japan, France and Spain. But the scheme has health officials warning of addiction, and European leaders are demanding answers.
The videos on the lite version are the same as those on TikTok, but as users continue to watch videos, they accumulate virtual coins that can be cashed in to use on sites such as Amazon and PayPal.
“You get 150 coins for every minute you’re connected,” said TikTok user Les Gens D’Internet in France. “And if you connect every day for 10 straight days, you get a bonus!”
The hype is high, but so far, TikTok itself has been silent. The company did not respond to The World’s interview request, nor has it said how many downloads TikTok Lite has had in its first month.
The controversial company has said it created the app to reach people in remote parts of the world where internet and cell phone coverage are weak. The “Lite” in TikTok Lite refers to the new app’s smaller bandwidth.
However, as TikTok seeks to expand its market, it risks losing a big one: Europe.
“We have already launched formal proceedings against TikTok on the grounds of addictive or potentially addictive behavior,” said Johannes Bahrke, a spokesman for the European Commission. The Commission opened its case against TikTok in February, accusing it of failing to keep kids off its platform.
TikTok Lite, with its watch-and-reward system, is under even harsher scrutiny.
It launched this month without presenting a risk assessment for mental health and addiction, as required by European law. According to Commission officials, TikTok claims to have the assessment in hand but says it hasn’t been able to share it for technical reasons.
So, Bahrke said that TikTok was given a deadline of 24 hours to share the assessment. “On the grounds of protection of minors and the mental health of users,” he said.
But that deadline came and went, and still, TikTok isn’t talking.
The TikTok Inc. building is seen in Culver City, Calif., March 17, 2023.Damian Dovarganes/APFile photoThe Commission has now given TikTok until April 24 to explain itself. If it doesn’t, the Commission says it will suspend the app’s rewards section and freeze its coins. It would be the first such penalty against a social media platform since Europe passed a strict new law governing online services last August.
Some mental health workers in Spain welcome the crackdown.
“The symptoms include a lack of emotional well-being and belonging, dissatisfaction with life and a rise in anxiety and depression,” said Jannira Becerril, a therapist at Centre Bonanova, a clinic in Barcelona. More and more adolescents are grappling with screen-time addiction, she said.
TikTok Lite is following the formula of other popular apps and online games, Becerril added, like Fortnite or Candy Crush.
“You’re being rewarded,” she said. “… whether it’s with virtual tokens or with more time on the platform.”
That’s essentially the app’s design — to give users’ brains a hit of dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with reward and pleasure.
“It leaves users more and more vulnerable to becoming addicted,” Becerril said.
As online influencers tout TikTok Lite as an easy way to get a paid side hustle, another issue pops up: It doesn’t actually pay very much. For a full hour engaged on TikTok Lite, users earn under a dollar.
If Europe does suspend this rewards system, TikTok Lite stands to lose a lot more than just its customers.
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It’s almost beach season in Turkey and for many visiting Urla — a harbor city that serves as a popular summer destination — no trip is complete without a cold, bubbly drink called gazoz, a soda that gets its flavors from the towns where it’s made.
At Ferhat İskit’s café — Gazozcucu — there’s plenty of coffee and tea to offer. But what people really come for is the gazoz.
“These are the local sodas of our country,” İskit said, “Every province has its own gazoz.”
Customers enjoy gazoz together. biz_bize_aile_cay_evi/InstagramHis collection is proudly displayed, interspersed with 1980s decor and memorabilia along a wall for customers to browse.
The eye-popping array of colors is set apart by distinct glass bottles, often designed specifically for a brand.
Many are sweetened with local beet sugar. Sodas flavored with mandarin orange, raspberry and ginger are popular, but aromatic options like bergamot, purple basil and jasmine hold their own for adventurous drinkers.
“We started off with just three or five flavors, now we have 130,” İskit said.
İskit’s favorites are all from small-town micro-producers.
One from the kitesurfing coast of Alaçatı is flavored with mastic gum, an aromatic tree resin. There’s an almond gazoz from Datça, a peninsula famed for its almond orchards. Another lavender peach flavor pops right off the shelf in a vibrant shade of hot pink. It’s made in Denizli, a town that grows both lavender and peaches near the ruins of an ancient Roman city.
“These are always boutique businesses,” İskit said. “Small businesses don’t survive like this, commonly. So we buy what we can and bring them here.”
These nostalgic gazoz cafés are a boost for small soda makers hoping to find new fans around the country. İskit’s gazoz collection has become a destination for Urla vacationers, brimming with memories of a soda whose heyday was over 50 years ago.
“We might lose it someday, but now it’s nostalgic. It’s a beautiful thing, and it tastes good,” said 77-year-old Ahmet Söylemez. He prefers the classic, original taste of Mercan Gazoz, a brand from his hometown of Izmir that has been around since his childhood.
Gazoz was first manufactured at the beginning of the 20th century by a Greek Ottoman businessman fresh off a trip from France. The French phrase for carbonated water, l’eau gazeuse, hit the markets of Istanbul as gazoz and made a splash.
“Then, our locals made it,” Söylemez said.
Gesturing toward the wall of gazoz, he said, “Here we can see every corner of Turkey. Villages, big cities, all different people have taken the formula and produced it.”
“This [was] also a period of big migrations,” said Zafer Yenal, a food sociologist at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. “Turkey has always been a land of migrations.”
A screenshot from the Twitter account of Uludag Icecek, one of the brands that makes gazoz soda in Turkey. UludagIcecek/TwitterThe blossoming of gazoz brands continued in the middle of the 20th century, Yenal said, as people moved from small towns and villages to big cities. The taste of their hometown gazoz became a point of pride, and one that wasn’t too expensive to pick up at a local store.
“Even today, one of the first questions that people always ask each other is where you come from — memleket neresi?” Yenal said. “This is also kind of an indication of how strong and important local and regional identities are. Gazoz connected people to that sense of identity.”
In the 1980s, multinational brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi became too much for local gazoz producers to compete. Only a handful have survived to the present day. But in the past five years, Turkey has seen a revival of small gazoz makers experimenting with old flavors.
Yenal sees their popularity as a response to globalization.
“It’s a very fleeting world. These kinds of local products might help them feel a bit more at home and more secure,” he said.
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Mohammed Najjar, his wife Salam Najjar, and their young children live in the West Bank, in a home that overlooks an olive orchard.
Their home is bordered by a highway built primarily as a convenience for Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
“The settlers are always around, so I make my kids play inside the house,” Salam Najjar said. “It’s not big, but I have to let them play soccer indoors.”
The Najjar house is surrounded by a heavy gauge steel fence.
Mohammed Najjar said he put it up last year when settlers living nearby attacked his house. They torched the two entrances, and then, blew up a gas canister, he said. They also killed a couple of sheep.
The village of Burin as seen from the home of the Najjars.Marco Werman/The WorldThere may not be army tanks on the highways in the West Bank, but another war is being fought between Israelis and Palestinians here.
On March 4, the Najjars’ oldest son was killed.
“I had gone to a nearby town to get my phone repaired, Mohammed Najjar said, “and on the way back, I got a call from my wife telling me there were Israeli soldiers on patrol in our town.”
Mohammed Najjar was in the van with two of his sons, 10-year-old Amer, and younger brother Ahmad.
As they were driving into Burin, the village where they live southwest of Nablus, Mohammed Najjar said he could hear shooting.
“I stopped, but I could not locate where the sound was coming from,” he said.
He saw cars passing by him so he thought it was safe to drive ahead.
“Then, the cars came back, so I parked and waited,” he said.
As soon as he stopped, they were shot at, he continued.
“The shot came from in front of us. Amer was killed.”
The bullet hole in the van that resulted in Amer’s death.Marco Werman/The WorldMoments later, he said, he saw that the bullet had come from an Israeli military jeep about 50 meters away.
“I got out of the car and started shouting, ‘Amer has been martyred,’” he said. “That’s when the jeep pulled toward us and stopped 20 meters from our van.”
The situation became very chaotic.
“People came over to help us, to take Amer’s body in another car to the hospital.”
It all happened in a matter of minutes.
Mohammed Najjar, the father, 38 years old. Marco Werman/The World“They could see it was a child in a van. He was killed with no justification whatsoever,” Salam Najjar said of the incident.
Salam Najjar, 30, and daughter Sama, 8.Marco Werman/The WorldThe World’s request for an interview with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) about the incident was declined.
The IDF did confirm in writing that they had troops in Burin on March 4, conducting a “counterterrorism activity,” and that they responded with live fire when confronted with rock throwers.
The statement then goes on to say that a Palestinian minor Amer Najjar died.
“The circumstances of the incident were examined, and it was found that the boy was hit by a stray bullet.”
The World had an appointment to speak with Burin’s Mayor Ibrahim Omar Abu al-Amir, but he got stuck at an Israeli checkpoint and had to cancel the in-person meeting.
“The Palestinians in the West Bank, we suffer from a lack of stability, a lack of security, a lack of movement,” he said over a brief chat by phone. “Look, I’m in Nablus, 10 minutes away, and I’ve been at this checkpoint for an hour.”
A view of the village of Burin, just southwest of Nablus, West Bank.Marco Werman/The WorldThe mayor explained that Burin is flanked by three Jewish settlements.
“Those settlers attack us [and they are] supported by the army.”
Since Oct. 7, 2023, those attacks have increased on both people and livestock, he added.
“Every time our families know one of us has to go through these Israeli checkpoints, it’s like we’re bidding them farewell forever,” he said, adding that he had to go as tensions rose at the checkpoint.
“You never know when a stray bullet could end your life,” he said.
It’s been nearly two months since the death of the Najjars’ oldest child, Amer.
“If I’m alone, I collapse,” Salam Najjar said. “When I’m with my kids, I stay strong.”
Ahmad is traumatized, she said. He feels guilty that if he hadn’t insisted on going with his dad to the phone repair store, Amer wouldn’t have wanted to go.
She took him aside and said, “it’s not because of you.”
“It is very important for me to make him feel secure,” she said.
Salam and Mohammed Najjar and their three children. Marco Werman/The WorldThe Najjars as well as others here say that without the intervention of the United States and Europe, nothing in the West Bank will change.
The family continues to face threats from settlers and the Israeli army.
“They may feel they’re the stronger party,” Salam Najjar said. “But we know through our faith that we will defeat them.”
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In form and content, “Patriots” feels like a historical Shakespearen play. There are dozens of characters, political treachery and, at the center of it all, a large, flawed and, ultimately tragic, character: Boris Berezovsky, played by American actor Michael Stuhlbarg.
“It really feels like a modern Shakespeare play,” Stuhlbarg said. “There are remnants of ‘Shylock,’ remnants of “Richard the Third.””
“Patriots” is a play debuting on Broadway on Monday by Peter Morgan, the creator of the Netflix series, “The Crown,” about the British monarchy. Similarly, “Patriots” is based on real characters; it’s set in 1990s Russia and delves into the intersection of billionaires and politics.
The full company of “Patriots” by Peter Morgan, directed by Rupert Goold.Courtesy of Matthew MurphyBerezovsky is a billionaire, Stuhlbarg explained about his character.
“He got involved with the oil industry and the automobile industry and he was involved with [Russian airlines] Aeroflot.”
He also owned ORTV, the most-important television station in Russia. And he becomes a kingmaker — backing a low-level political functionary and former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin — who is now the president of Russia.
Berezovsky helped Putin rise to power, but discovered that he couldn’t control him.
Michael Stuhlbarg as Boris Berezovsky in “Patriots,” written by Peter Morgan, directed by Rupert Goold.Courtesy of Matthew MurphyThe play’s director Rupert Goold said that playwright Morgan’s themes really areShakespearean.
“How power is enabled, how absolute power corrupts absolutely,” he explained. “Maybe the central theme of the whole play is loyalty and betrayal and different ideas of that; betrayal in some way being the opposite of patriotism.”
Luke Thallon as Roman Abramovich and Michael Stuhlbarg as Boris Berezovsky in “Patriots” by Peter Morgan, directed by Rupert Goold.Courtesy of Matthew MurphyAlong the way, the audience is introduced to a variety of figures — among them, oligarch Roman Abramovich and KGB agent-turned-dissident Alexander Litvinenko. They have differing ideas of what patriotism means, explained Will Keen, who plays Putin.
“What is patriotism beyond a profound love of the country?” Keen asked. “And it’s possible to do all sorts of things, in the name of love, both good and bad. So, I think that every character in the play is profoundly attached, in a sort of a really essential telluric way to the idea of Russia.”
Researching the characters
The actors researched their characters beyond the script. Stuhlbarg watched videos of Berezovsky, a mathematician who got a master’s degree in decision-making theory before he made the decision to become a businessman.
“There was a wonderful Frontline interview that was conducted about, either a year or a few months before he died, [in] which he was very animated and very candid,” the actor said. “I listened to his voice. I watched his mannerisms.”
Will Keen as Vladimir Putin and Michael Stuhlbarg as Boris Berezovsky in “Patriots” by Peter Morgan, directed by Rupert Goold.Courtesy of Matthew MurphyAt the start of the play, Stuhlbarg pulls off a theatrical tour de force, juggling several phone calls at once — snarling at associates, purring to his mistress, trying unsuccessfully to bribe the then-deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Putin.
Meanwhile, Will Keen watched videos of Putin, as well, not just as the man we now know, but as an awkward, insecure nonentity in the past. Keen said that in Morgan’s script, Putin’s physical journey was part of the character’s emotional journey.
“There’s this sequence that Peter’s written into it; of him rehearsing in a mirror, sort of how to wear the face of the leader,” Keen explained. “And that sense of his performativeness actually is something else that I’ve observed and has interested me a lot. The sense of a kind of mask that he has put on. It’s a role.”
Alex Hurt as Alexander Litvinenko in “Patriots” by Peter Morgan, directed by Rupert Goold.Courtesy of Matthew MurphyRussia invaded Ukraine right before “Patriots” started rehearsals for its first production at the Almeida Theatre in London two years ago.
Director Rupert Goold said, “What had been a historical play that then we’d been centering on the character Boris suddenly became a much more urgent contemporary political play.”
Some say that it seems even more urgent now — between Alexei Navalny’s death and Putin’s reelection. In the play, an exiled Berezovsky tells Alexander Litvineko’s widow how it’s important to resist Putin. He tells her he must “rid the country we all love of that monster. Putin was my mistake. Getting rid of him is my responsibility.”
Despite his efforts, Berezovsky never was able to do so. And he died under suspicious circumstances.
Goold said Berezovsky was “the facilitator of Putin. And Putin’s rise is definitely on his hands, but he was also the canary down the mineshaft about seeing what was coming.” And, in 2024, of what’s to come.
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The UN has warned the world that Haiti has reached the brink of collapse.
A transitional council has been created with the goal of stabilizing the country. But heavily armed gangs still control much of Haiti, and Port-au-Prince, the capital, remains unsafe.
Against that backdrop, the Biden administration has resumed deportation of Haitians who have run afoul of US immigration law.
Harold Isaac, an independent reporter based in Haiti, is following all of this and updated The World’s Carol Hills with the latest developments.
Carol Hills: We’ll get to the deportation issue in a moment. But what exactly is this transitional council for Haiti?Harold Isaac: Well, it’s an experiment that the country is about to make. It has turned official in the last week. And now this seven-member presidential council has to be installed in the coming hours or days, somewhere this weekend or the next week.So what is its mandate, and who’s serving on it?Well, let’s put it this way: President Ariel Henry was the de facto head of state. But, if you went into any state offices, Jovenel Moïse’s portrait is still hanging on the wall in certain state offices. And this goes to show you how much of a political void there has been in the executive branch, for that long. In the meantime, the constitutional clock was still ticking, and you don’t have a parliament and the judicial branch is dysfunctional. So you really have a situation where people were like, “OK, anything that happens, something needs to happen.” After Premier Ari was, let’s say, prevented from coming back into the country, it kind of propelled us from a de facto government to a ghost government. So now Haitians just need whatever they can get their hands on, which is a government that will primarily have the mandate to restore security and deliver on elections. And that raises a really big “if.” Perhaps the best way to describe it is that it is some sort of national union government. A collective that will be in charge of delivering security and elections in the coming two years. Its term is set to expire on Feb. 7, 2026.Protesters hold up copies of former rebel leader Guy Philippe with a message that reads in creole “We claim Guy Philippe as president of the council” in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, April 2, 2024. Odelyn Joseph/APSo, is the idea that it’s kind of an interim government, or is it a committee that’s come together to figure out a path forward?It’s to be determined. Tensions within Haitian society are manifesting themselves in the establishment of this committee. On one hand, there are those who argue that it should be an opportunity to change the constitution. On the other hand, there are those who argue that Haiti should try to return to the constitutional order.And who is serving on this transitional council?So you have about seven various sectors plus an additional two. It includes political parties you could consider traditional parties in the country established, such as Lavalas. You have members of civil society, such as The Montana Accord group, which some people will label an opposition group. You have even members of the accord who were backing the former government, who are also included in that coalition.A National Police officer patrols an intersection in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, April 6, 2024. Odelyn Joseph/APNow, the US has just resumed deportations of Haitians. What kind of daily life are they returning to?Well, it’s complicated for them. Normally, deportations are done over Port-au-Prince. However, in this specific case, the only operating international airport in Haiti right now is 250 kilometers up north, in Cap-Haitien. And that’s where the US has started their deportation. And if these folks, I’d say, were coming from the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, getting back into the city would be very complicated.Now, I’m wondering about you. How are you able to even report you’re based in Port-au-Prince? Isn’t the situation there dangerous?It is. It is absolutely dangerous. It is also a challenge to report daily. But, what I could say is that it is a reality for anybody who is living here, and they have to figure it out. You know, for those who have the option to leave, it’s almost become a duty to stay and to figure it out with friends and families that we have here. So, folks you talk to on the streets and offices, people you’re meeting at the supermarket … what they’re telling you is that it is a duty for them to stay. Where would they go? You know, what is expecting them anywhere else? And this is what is leading a lot of folks to stay despite it all. But it is our reality, and I wouldn’t change it for anything else.This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
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Israel carried out an attack on Iran late Thursday night near the city of Isfahan, Iran’s second-largest metropolitan area. The operation was confirmed by senior US and Iranian officials.
It appears to be Israel’s response to Iran’s attack on Sunday, when Tehran fired hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel. That attack was in response to Israel’s strike on the Iranian Embassy complex in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on April 1.
US officials have urged restraint and deescalation, and on Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was not involved in the attack.
“We’re committed to Israel’s security,” Blinken said. “We’re also committed to deescalating, to trying to bring this tension to a close.”
The World’s host Carol Hills spoke with Ali Vaez to understand the situation. He’s the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group and spoke from Washington.
Carol Hills: What do we know so far about the weapons Israel used in this attack against Iran?Ali Vaez: There are still more questions than answers about what exactly happened. But it appears that Israel fired three ballistic missiles into Iran from the Iraqi airspace. There were also some small drones that Iranians shot down. And so, it’s quite possible that this was a hybrid attack, that there were drones that were flown from inside the country in order to confuse or distract the aerial defense systems so that the missiles could actually reach their targets.Vehicles drive past an anti-Israeli banner showing missiles being launched, in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, April 19, 2024.Vahid Salemi/APNow, since Iran’s attack on Israel last weekend, it was unprecedented. The US has been urging Israel to use restraint. Do you think the scale of this retaliatory attack by Israel on Iran is an indication that Israel is listening or not listening?Well, I think President [Joe] Biden’s preference would have been that Israel would not respond at all. But now that Israel has responded, we can say safely that it was a very limited and restrained response, and that hopefully would result in both sides being able to draw a line under this chapter and move on. The reality is that with what Israel has done, it basically has signaled to Iran that it does not allow Iran to unilaterally revise the rules of the game. But also, it has not triggered a broader escalation and putting Iran in a position that it feels that the urge to retaliate in kind is irresistible.Tell us more about Isfahan, which was the nearest city to where the attack took place and its strategic role in Iran?Well, Isfahan is at the heart of the country, and this is the message that Israel was trying to send, that it can reach deep inside Iran. But Isfahan is also the ancient capital of the Persian empire, the Safavid Empire. There are a lot of UNESCO-protected heritage sites in that city, but it is also the location of Iran’s drone-production factory and also some of Iran’s most-important nuclear facilities. And in the past, Israel has conducted covert operations against those facilities. And that’s why the Israeli counterstrike seems to fall in the category of covert operations, which is the status quo of the relationship between the two countries, the gray zone combat that they’ve been fighting for many years now.Given the proximity of the attack to Iran’s nuclear sites, do we know anything about how close Iran is to acquiring a nuclear weapon?Well, Iran has never been closer to the threshold of nuclear weapons. When President [Donald] Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, it would take Iran about 12 months to enrich enough uranium for a single nuclear weapon, it would still have to fashion that into a nuclear device. But today, we are in a situation that it would only take Iran about six days to enrich enough uranium for a single nuclear weapon. And for the first time since the beginning of the nuclear crisis with Iran, Iran has the possibility, given the lower level of inspections of its nuclear program by UN inspectors, to basically dash towards weaponized uranium without detection.A worshipper chants slogans as she holds an Iranian flag during an anti-Israeli gathering after Friday prayer in Tehran, Iran, April 19, 2024.Vahid Salemi/APDid these attacks by Israel, did they damage anything? Did they damage any nuclear sites or cause any casualties?So, nuclear sites, we know that they have not been damaged because, last night, the US administration had leaked to the media that nuclear sites were not among the targets. And this morning, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, has announced that the nuclear sites are intact. And so, it appears that at least the nuclear sites were not the main target. But the signaling is hard to miss, that Israel was trying to tell Iran that its nuclear program is also within Israel’s reach.But do we know of any casualties from these attacks by Israel?There has been no announcement. And the Iranians, I think, are purposefully minimizing the attack because it gives them a face-saving way out of this cycle of escalation. The main question to which we don’t have an answer is whether this was a one-off Israeli attack or is a prelude to more attacks, or bigger, attacks in the future.Which leads me to my last question: Where do you think things stand now between Israel and Iran?Look, I think in this process, both sides have demonstrated that neither has the appetite for a direct confrontation or for the expansion of the conflict in Gaza. But the most dangerous moment in any geostrategic rivalry is when the parties start revising the rules of the game. Because in a case like [the one] between Iran and Israel, the two countries that have no relations with one another, there is plenty of space for misunderstanding before a new equilibrium is established. And so, in the coming weeks and months, we might see that, as the conflict in Gaza continues, and there’s currently no light at the end of a tunnel for that war, that there is still plenty of risk for Iran and Israel, even if this episode has come to an end, to commit miscalculations and for tensions to spiral out of control.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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Some years back, an American in Spain became homeless after a string of bad luck. Now, he’s helping others who’ve hit a similar rough spot. Especially other foreigners with an entrepreneurial spirit.
Five decades after the 1973 coup in Chile that toppled the government of Salvador Allende and brought General Augusto Pinochet to power with help from the US, people in Chile are deeply divided about what the coup anniversary means today.
Supporters of newly elected Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo say that the nation’s courts have long favored the elites including some former military members. But now under Arévalo, whose victory is under dispute, they say that they hope for change, including for the victims of war crimes committed during Guatemala’s civil war.
In much of Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand, three-year undergraduate degrees are standard. Now, a US college accrediting body is allowing Brigham Young University in Idaho and affiliated Ensign College to offer shorter programs that require fewer credits.
Damages to the environment are widespread and will continue to impact Ukrainians for decades to come.
Oleh Shpudieiko, also known as Heinali, left his hometown at the start of Russia’s invasion. To heal his trauma, he made “Kyiv Eternal,” an album fusing electronic music with recordings of his past life.
Getting an acceptance letter from a US university is cause for celebration. However, getting a student visa in time to attend the first day of class can be a bigger achievement. That's because the wait can last months, even more than a year, for some countries. The World looks into the delays that are discouraging global talent from coming to the US.
Amie Ferris-Rotman, a global news editor for New Lines Magazine, wrote a personal essay about her experience being pregnant in Russia, where many citizens believe it is a woman’s patriotic duty to give birth and become a mother. She talked about it with The World's Marco Werman.
The walk culminates in the city of Karbala to remember the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Husayn.
In this video, The World’s Tibisay Zea explains how the war in Ukraine is shaking up a big part of Senegal's food culture.
As we wrap up “Planet Hip Hop,” our summer series celebrating 50 years of hip-hop music around the world, H. Samy Alim returns to talk with host Marco Werman about the next 50 years. Alim is an anthropology professor and the director of the Hip Hop Initiative at UCLA.
Most Cambodians live in rural areas, with many struggling to make a living on small farms. Even with low public school tuition fees, sending a child to college is nearly impossible. Those who want a higher education must be resourceful.
Foxes have played a role London's landscape for a century. But they're being increasingly seen as pests, who raid trash cans and cause fear and annoyance. Reporter Rebecca Rosman talks to a photographer and a historian who want to celebrate the foxes of London.
Borrowers in the US and the UK rack up the highest debt in the world. In Denmark, tuition is free and students are given grants to pay for things like food and housing. Hardly anyone takes out loans, but free education comes with a price.
At least seven people are dead after a protest led by a pastor marched through a gang-controlled suburb of the capital.
Spain’s on the rebound with tourism after huge losses during the pandemic. Those in the tourism business are relieved. But visitors are back with a vengeance and they’re not always well-behaved, irking locals who miss the quieter days.
Jamala, an Indigenous Crimean Tatar, often talks about how her heritage shapes her music. Her new album, “Qirim,” or “Crimea,” is a sort of ode to her country, with 14 epic Crimean Tatar folk songs.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has consolidated power over the last two decades. Yet, as the country prepares for regional elections next month, opposition voices are encouraging a “protest vote.”
A combination of a patriarchal culture and weak laws allow for many fathers to skip parental obligations and get away with it.
Many questions remain a day after the reported death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash. The World's host Marco Werman speaks with Kimberly Marten, who has studied the Wagner Group and testified about it on Capitol Hill. She is also a professor at Barnard College, Columbia University.
In 1916, Russian announced a draft to enlist Native peoples in modern-day Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan to support Russia in World War I. The Russians killed thousands of people who resisted, and some 100,000 more people died trying to flee to China. More than a century later the episode is still difficult to talk about because of efforts by Russia to erase it from the history books.
In Nicaragua, last week, a judge ordered the seizure of the country’s most-important Jesuit university, the 63-year-old Central American University. It’s the latest in an ongoing government crackdown on the Catholic Church and church-affiliated institutions inside Nicaragua.
Mugre Sur is known for their deeply political songs — and also their sense of humor. They’re tackling Ecuador’s political turmoil in their upcoming album, “Sudamericamente.”
The mysterious demolition of a lopsided 18th-century pub in England has infuriated the local community and raised questions about the loss of British heritage and the demise of the country’s famous pub culture.
Two human rights advocacy groups have listed hundreds of incidents of human rights violations by immigration officials that include physical violence, verbal abuse and sexual harassment — including some cases that have been fatal.
Britain's National Health Service is known as a model of free health care for UK citizens. But as the public institution celebrates its 75th year, patients face long wait times at doctors' offices and hospitals. Some say the system needs more funding; others argue that either citizens need to pay for at least a part of their care or private companies should play a greater role.
People of faith gathered in Chicago this week to talk about something that doesn’t sound very religious. And that’s authoritarianism. It wasn’t a traditional political rally for a specific candidate. They’re taking part in the Parliament of the World’s Religions, an interfaith convening that first took place in the late 1800s. People from many different religious traditions took part.
In Colombia's capital city Bogotá, pedestrians need to watch out for loose slabs of pavement they can trip over, or wobbly tiles that get their feet wet or splash dirty water on their pants. But some activists have started trying to shame the city into making repairs more quickly by covering the broken spots with pink paint and black Xs.
The tiny Central American country of Costa Rica is known as a green paradise. But climate change is hitting the country in a multitude of ways, including increasing its risk from storms and natural disasters. Nowhere is the shifting planet being felt more than in some of the country’s most iconic parks and reserves, where ecosystems are changing rapidly.
This coming school year, high school students in Russia will receive new history textbooks. They offer a rewritten rendition of Russian history that reflects the Kremlin’s narrative about the war in Ukraine. The textbooks are part of a wider effort by the state to tighten control over the flow of information.
In 2020, the Korean film "Parasite" made history at the Oscars when it became the first non-English language film to win best picture. But before "Parasite," there was a different Korean film occupying the international cinematic landscape: a 2003 movie called "Oldboy." It's being rereleased in theaters on Wednesday for its 20th anniversary.
Odessa bears the scars of a blast that killed everything in its path. That's Odessa, Texas. It was hit by a meteor about 60,000 years ago. Today it is the best-preserved impact crater on Earth. Fulbright scholar Ania Losiak from Poland has been studying the crater, looking for what she describes as the meteor's "murderous behavior" to see how mankind can be prepared for the next one. Mitch Borden, of Marfa Public Radio, met her at the crater to learn more about her work.
Six months after twin earthquakes devastated southern Turkey and northern Syria, the residents who remain are carving out a life amid the rubble.
Millions of Europeans, especially from Italy and Spain, migrated to Argentina between the 19th and 20th centuries. Their descendants are now reclaiming their rights to return to Europe.
A group of carpenters in Southern Germany are building a village and monastery following the only blueprint that survived the early Middle Ages — a medieval manuscript that was first sketched on calfskin — which was never built, until now.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, The World's Marco Werman looks at women who are rocking the mic across the globe. He dives in with Msia Kibona Clark from the department of African Studies at Howard University and host of the "Hip Hop African" podcast.
Fisherman Pennel Ames tossed hundreds of messages in bottles into the ocean off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, asking anyone who found them to write back to him. Two decades later, people are still finding them around the world.
Thirty years ago, war raged in the city of Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia, where Gino Yevdjevich was once a pop artist. In our latest segment of “Movement,” our series on music and migration, we hear how this conflict changed Gino’s life and led him to create the Seattle-based punk band Kultur Shock.
Peru is the world's largest exporter of shark fins, according to the marine protection organization Oceana. The catches are usually sent to Asia, where shark fin soup is a delicacy that can cost about $200 a bowl. This lucrative trade is threatening species of sharks off the coasts of Peru and neighboring Ecuador.
Calling it a humanitarian crisis, Governor Maura Healey has activated the National Guard to support migrants at Joint Base Cape Cod and launched two welcome centers in Boston and Quincy. But the influx of desperate people is so great that families are flooding nonprofits and local hospitals.
Since Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July, its troops have been attacking Ukraine’s ports, destroying 220,000 metric tons of grain in the past week alone. But US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that the grain deal could be brought back to life.
The iconic East Los Angeles band Los Lobos is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Their blend of rock ’n’ roll and traditional Mexican music has stayed consistent over generations. Members of the band, which formed when they were in high school, reflect with The World's host Marco Werman on their staying power.
In order to prevent Russian troops from advancing toward Kyiv, Ukrainian forces destroyed a dam on the Irpin River early on in the war. The flooding, as it turned out, created new wetland areas. Some conservationists hope to see the wetlands stay. Even residents whose cellars remain flooded are glad the water came and the Russian troops did not.
Europe’s final victims of a drug scandal dating back more than half a century are finally being compensated. Partially, at least.
Seon Joo Oh, a grandmother in her 60s, teaches Korean cooking classes at the Milwaukee Recreation Department. She says her own grandmother back in South Korea lived to be 105 years old and told her that you’re never too old to learn something new. Now she wants to pass that on to her community in the US.
New research found nonnative-English speakers face higher rejection rates and 12.5 times more revisions than their native English-speaking counterparts. But there are solutions.
A six-month ceasefire between the Colombian government and the rebel group known as the National Liberation Army began this month. Support for the truce, and ongoing peace talks, could depend on whether the group ceases attacks on civilians that include kidnappings and extortion.
Shells, bombs and hand grenades are still found across Belgium on a daily basis. Every year, a special unit removes over 150 metric tons of unexploded ordnance.
Ukraine is now considered the most heavily mined country in the world. Nearly 1,000 civilians have been killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnances since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. And about a third of the country needs to be cleared of these explosives. Much of that land is farmland.
As part of our summer series, "Planet Hip Hop," we take you to South Korea, where hip-hop found its footing in the 1990s. Haekyung Um has written extensively about Korean pop culture and also teaches global popular music and Asian music industries at the University of Liverpool. She joined The World’s host Marco Werman to talk about the evolution of hip-hop and rap in South Korea.
The Nordic nation is the third-largest exporter of pop music in the world, after the US and the UK. But musicians in Sweden are worried that the country's changing political climate could endanger this great Swedish success story.
Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh are seeing shortages in basic necessities and are calling on the US and EU to step in.
The Ukrainian government is doing an unusually thorough job of documenting environmental damages being caused by Russian attacks. Their primary goal, according to the Ministry of the Environment, is to eventually win compensation for these damages.
A 2017 survey indicates much less species growth in Germany’s Black Forest. Two plant species have gone extinct, and several more will likely disappear in the next 15 years.
Nearly a year and a half into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its impact has been felt most acutely in lost lives, flattened cities and destroyed infrastructure. But the environmental damage from combat has also contaminated Ukraine’s soil, water and air, at a cost the government is estimating to be $56 billion. This impact is likely to be one of the longest-lasting legacies of the war, persisting for decades after the fighting stops.
Liberia has been on and off the State Department's human trafficking watch list for years. In this desperately poor country, people accept jobs from agents to work as domestic servants in other countries. Usually, they are trapped, earning little money and subject to abuse. But several hundred Liberian women used social media to escape their traffickers in 2022.
After four years of pandemic shutdowns, the grand Gion Matsuri festival resumed in all its glory this July, with bells, gongs and flutes chiming atop massive floats decked out in lavish tapestries and treasures.
Getting accurate casualty numbers in Russia’s war against Ukraine has been very difficult. Now, a team of Russian journalists and researchers are doing the grueling work of counting Russian casualties on their own, using some unusual methods.
Ecuador is in the throes of political turmoil and discrimination against foreigners is on the rise. This is affecting gay and transgender Venezuelans particularly hard.
Dr. Alexander Tenorio manages a network of doctors in the San Diego area who are on call to receive individuals who attempt to climb over the 18-foot border wall, then fall on the US side where they have to be treated in local hospitals. It's an urgent issue as the border wall is now being raised in many parts from 18 feet to 30 feet.
Unlike conflicts in the past, technology is now allowing third-party observers to document human rights abuses in near-real time thanks to, among other things, low-orbit satellites. The Recorded Future News podcast, "Click Here,” looks at the past and current violence in Darfur, Sudan.
This summer, we are taking you on a global journey to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. In Senegal, hip-hop has evolved from something of a fad, to an influential force for social change.
In our latest installment of “Movement,” our series on music and migration, Meklit Hadero speaks with Belgian artists Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul, who are trying to start difficult conversations through music.
New York City has opened 188 shelters, including several humanitarian relief centers. But with 56,200 migrants currently living there, the shelter population is at an all-time high.
About 5,000 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Iceland since the start of the war, and continue to do so at a rate of about 200 arrivals per month. The government gives them nearly instant resident status, on humanitarian grounds. It has also created a website in Ukrainian to help them navigate the bureaucracy and culture.
Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many European countries have been trying to find ways to reduce their dependence on Russian energy. One place they’re starting to look is West Africa, where Senegal and Mauritania are capitalizing on recent discoveries of natural gas. But many locals are wondering how much they will benefit from their own country’s resources.
Scientists say research into newly found reefs could lead to important conservation efforts
The Moomins are troll-like characters from a Finnish children's book series that became popular around the world starting in the 1950s. But they never really took off in the United States. The author Tove Jansson rejected Walt Disney's offer to buy the brand. Now, a bookstore chain in the US is trying to popularize the Moomins here.
Sweden’s gun homicide rate is 2 1/2 times higher than the European average and 75% to 80% of deadly shootings remain unsolved. But local communities and former gang members are working together to find answers and fight back.
More than a year after thousands of Russians who opposed the war fled abroad for safety, they now face deportation and other challenges in the countries that initially received them, such as Kazakhstan, Estonia and Georgia.
Boston is a cradle of American history, and 4 million people a year visit the historic churches, graveyards and parks that make up the Freedom Trail to learn more about the country’s origins. But rarely do they hear the underbelly of that story: that slavery touched nearly every aspect of the society and the economy of Massachusetts during that period of time. But that is now changing.
Noam Tsuriely is a 28-year-old Jewish Israeli hip-hop artist from Jerusalem He says he likes to rap in both Hebrew and Arabic to get Israelis and Palestinians to learn both languages, so they can understand each other better. Tsuriely's story is the latest in The World's summer "Planet Hip Hop" series.
The small town of Akureyri, in Iceland, has set itself a big goal: to become the world’s first carbon-neutral city by 2030. It hopes that going green can serve as a model for other places.
Some startups throughout the Americas are establishing loans geared towards migrants. Among them is Galgo, which helps migrants buy motorbikes in order to earn money with delivery apps like Uber Eats.
The 27-year-old Japanese trading card franchise has exploded in popularity in recent years, leading to frenzied fans, collectors and Pokémon card players fighting for the best cards.
California is home to the largest Armenian diaspora. Since the end of the recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, there’s been a reverse migration of children of Armenian migrants in the US back to Armenia. They’re starting businesses, getting jobs and moving back with their families to set up homes.
Varzeshe Pahlavani is a mix of martial arts, wrestling and calisthenics. It has deep roots in Persian tradition going back centuries. The sport is officially closed off to women, but one female Iranian activist is trying to change that.
The UK has taken in more than 250,000 Ukrainian refugees since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022. The World follows up on the story of one of them: a young woman who fled to London alone in March of 2022.
The Green Road project has helped over 3,000 displaced Ukrainians find safe housing in ecovillages throughout Ukraine and across Europe — including the idyllic, rural community of Hallingelille, just outside of Ringsted, in Denmark. The project is a testament to the power of international friendships and networks in times of crisis.
After the war started in Ukraine last year, the UK created several programs to welcome Ukrainian refugees. British families received stipends to welcome them into their homes, and the Ukrainians had special status to live and work in Britain. But Sudanese refugees fleeing the civil war do not have a quick, legal path to enter the UK, even if they have family there.
For generations, people have moved from rural areas to cities to find opportunities. But new research shows neighborhoods in Indian cities are segregated according to caste and religion, and that impacts upward mobility for residents.
The ruble is not doing very well. The Russian currency has been in a free fall. Last week, it reached its lowest point against the US dollar since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That could have implications for the Russian economy.
Hip-hop has taken root in Egypt. Authorities are trying to suppress it. But the raw power of the music may be unstoppable. Yasmine el Rashidi, author of "Laughter in the Dark: Egypt to the Tune of Change," tells host Marco Werman how young Egyptians are pushing hip-hop to the limit.
The former administrative capital of French West Africa, Saint-Louis in Senegal sits between the Senegal River and the Atlantic Ocean. Its highest point stands just 13 feet above sea level, and it gets waves from both fresh and seawater that have become a growing threat as water levels rise.
About 10% of Iceland is still covered by glaciers — what Icelanders call their “white diamonds.” Now, a mysterious patch of cold water in the North Atlantic Ocean, known as the “Blue Blob,” is helping slow down the rate at which these glaciers are melting. But scientists are concerned about how long this will last.
Iraq's Ministry of Water Resources has warned that the country is facing its worst water shortage in a century. It said 7 million people are experiencing reduced access to water. Shrinking water levels, rampant salinity and contamination have left communities with no choice but to migrate.
After the war began in Ukraine last year, Ukrainians fleeing the violence spread across Europe. In the UK, a program paid families to take Ukrainians into their homes for six months. But the budget for this program was cut in half this year, and thousands of Ukrainians are looking for a longer-term solution, and risk becoming homeless.
A two-day NATO summit wraps up on Wednesday in Vilnius, Lithuania. The 31-nation military alliance now has plans to grow, with Sweden expected to become a full-fledged member. Ukraine is eager to join as well, and its membership bid was at the top of the NATO summit agenda.
The war in Ukraine has interrupted the delivery of wheat to Senegal, and that’s shaking up a big part of that country's culture.
The ongoing fighting in Sudan is being described as a civil war, with fears of possible genocide. The World's host Marco Werman speaks with Administrator Samantha Power, who heads the US Agency for International Development (USAID) about the unrest and humanitarian support to those who need it most.
A year and a half into her administration, many say Xiomara Castro has yet to live up to expectations. But as Honduras’ first female president, those expectations are higher than usual. Much of the criticism against Castro comes from machismo and gender discrimination. She’s just one of two female heads of state of a Latin American country.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year upended energy markets throughout Europe. No country was hit harder than Germany. At the time, more than half of Germany’s gas came from Russia. In the short term, the country had to double down on fossil fuels: keeping coal-fired power plants open longer and building new liquefied natural gas terminals. But in the long term, the war pushed a government falling behind on renewable energy goals to enact some ambitious new policies.
A financial deficit that forced Cardinal Stritch University in Wisconsin to close down left many of Milwaukee’s undocumented community with nowhere to go. Stritch was seen as a welcoming place for undocumented students facing additional barriers to higher education. Now, students are trying to replicate its services at other colleges.
Oscar Olivares plans to take his ecological art global in hopes of promoting sustainable practices and educating communities on how to recycle.
The Taliban have given all women’s beauty salons in Afghanistan one month to close down. The ultraconservative group, which took power by force in 2021, has consistently chipped away at women’s rights and freedoms in the country.
On Thursday, the 14th Dalai Lama turns 88 years old. The Tibetan spiritual leader and prominent Buddhist figure is the longest serving in the line of Dalai Lamas in Tibetan history. As he gets older, the prospect of his demise — and what happens after — is looming.
The current writer's strike in the United States jeopardizing content creation for streaming services might, in fact, help international film and television productions fill the gap and reach global audiences.
For most of the world, silent films died out in the 1930s. But in Brussels, the only remaining cinema in the world with a regular schedule of silent films, with live piano accompaniment, is thriving.
Many soldiers and civilians have lost limbs and need to be fitted with prosthetics. A group of Ukrainian soldiers in New York City are receiving treatment, and they’re already thinking about what their lives will look like when they return home.
Last week, mercenaries from the Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, seized a major Russian city. Fighters eventually stopped their march toward Moscow, but the mutiny put Putin’s leadership — and the military — into question.
In an interview with Recorded Future News’ podcast "Click Here," Hartman says the cooperation between the US and foreign partners like Ukraine has become important in the effort to deter Russia’s cyber operations.
The World’s “Planet Hip Hop” series takes us to France, where hip-hop is second only to the US in terms of popularity and influence. Samuel Lamontagne, co-leader of the UCLA Hip Hop Initiative, explains the power of hip-hop and its evolution in France.
In a nationwide address in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse to be “public enemy No. 1” and stepped up efforts to shut down the global trade. Much of the initial efforts of the DEA were focused on Southeast Asia where US troops in Vietnam were using heroin.
Although the movement began within political parties, it’s since spread to many other sectors of society such as entertainment and academia. And in some cases, there’s even been a backlash.
The latest installment of The World's "Planet Hip Hop" series takes us to Argentina, where trap music has a huge following. From their bedrooms, aspiring artists remix their favorite trap songs and record music of their own.
Colombia’s president awarded medals to members of the search party that found the four Indigenous children in one of the world’s toughest terrains.
People in Senegal are getting ready for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice. Families around the world will slaughter an animal, like a sheep or goat, to commemorate the willingness of the Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, in obedience to God. And as people choose what to wear, tailors are cramming to complete their outfit orders in time.
Maia Ernst and her mom escaped Dnipro under heavy shelling in a car occupied by dogs — her own and a few rescues. For the moment, they’re living about an hour outside Belgrade, the Serbian capital, where Ernst has taken in a couple more dogs.
The mayor’s move renews focus on Tijuana’s security situation and the state of Mexican democracy.
Over the last year, Ukrainian students have been studying in Danish folk high schools through a special endowment established soon after Russia invaded Ukraine. And a small group of Ukrainian visionaries are hoping to establish Ukraine’s first-ever folk high school.
Surrogacy is banned in Italy, but the government of Georgia Meloni is now trying to go further: outlawing the practice of having babies through surrogacy abroad. This will likely have an outsized impact on members of the LGBTQ community, which many believe is the point.
Russian attacks on Ukraine's power stations knocked out more than half of the country’s capacity to generate electricity last fall and winter. The widespread blackouts are over for now, but the new focus on energy security is raising prospects for a speedier transition to renewable energy as Ukraine rebuilds.
Signs of discontent among Russian nationalists and Wagner had been growing before a column of paramilitaries began an aborted march on Moscow.
In El Salvador, thousands of people have been imprisoned over the past 15 months, including dozens of international visitors, as the government tries to stop gang violence through a law known as the “state of exception.”
Denmark passed a special law last year that allows Ukrainians to bypass the asylum system and expedite the process of obtaining a two-year residency permit. But when the law expires in 2024, it remains unclear whether Denmark’s centrist government — with its overall, hard-line stance against immigration — will extend these temporary protections for Ukrainians.
Ukraine House in Denmark opened its doors on Feb. 24 this year, on the one-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine, with the aim to promote Ukraine's cultural heritage and organize creative Danish-Ukrainian collaborations.
Senegal is often seen as a model of political stability in West Africa. But that could be changing. President Macky Sall has upset people with the suggestion that he may run for a third term next year, defying the Constitution, and young people are increasingly frustrated by a lack of opportunities. Recent protests turned deadly, and most victims were under the age of 30.
Modi will hold bilateral talks with Biden and address a joint session of Congress, followed by a lavish dinner reception at the White House. The US and India have long enjoyed warm relations, but this visit is particularly momentous.
Incumbent President Julius Maada Bio will face off against against main contender Samura Kamara on June 24. As the country prepares for this crucial election, voters are looking at issues like economic stagnation, corruption and national security.
An Indigenous woman in Bolivia has earned international recognition for her work in the production, transformation and commercialization of cañahua, a resilient crop and nutritious grain with the potential to reach international markets.
US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns was in the room this week when Secretary of State Antony Blinken sat down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Amb. Burns spoke with The World’s Marco Werman about Taiwan, Ukraine and why US and Chinese military leaders have stopped talking to one another.
When the Afghan government fell to the Taliban in 2021, hundreds of students continued their education in Kyrgyzstan. As some students begin to graduate, many are hoping to relocate to the United States.
About a dozen Russian game developers have wound up in the quiet city of Subotica, on the border of Serbia and Hungary, to start over after fleeing Russia. Some left after facing arrest for aiding Ukraine, while others wanted to avoid getting drafted.
Daniel Ellsberg died June 16, 2023, months after announcing that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. To millions of Americans who opposed the war, his whistleblowing was an act of patriotism — but millions of others regarded it as treason.
Georgia’s beloved Borjomi mineral water can be found anywhere from Kyiv to Kazakhstan. But Russia's war in Ukraine has hurt the company’s bottom line.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive appears to be off to a good start, even though it’s early days.
Yang Ye Ma, who teaches sociology at Syracuse University and has written extensively about Chinese students experiences in the US, and Tire Huang, a senior at the University of California San Diego studying philosophy and economics, discuss the challenges with The World's Marco Werman.
Thousands of students attending US colleges and universities actually reside in Mexico. The World's Marco Werman speaks to teacher Joanna Esser and Tijuana student Carlos Tenorio from Southwestern College in Chula Vista, California, about what it's like to cross borders daily for education.
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is classified as a Hispanic-serving institution where some bilingual courses are offered. The World's host Marco Werman speaks with astronomy professor Juan Madrid about teaching his classes in both Spanish and English and what it means for the students.
Language has always been at the heart of the Catalan people’s campaign for independence. And the regional government is once again demanding that university professors teach their courses in Catalan. But does the Catalan-language law further the nationalist cause, or leave the region more isolated? Professors are already rebelling.
Migrants from many countries were previously able to cross the US border on foot and turn themselves in to officials to begin asylum proceedings. But since May 12, it's become much harder, and those turned down are banned from re-entering the US for the next five years. Many are now trying to secure appointments through a US government app, but spaces are limited.
Ukrainian authorities say at least 19,000 children have been transferred to Russia from occupied territories during the war. Some Ukrainian families have taken matters into their own hands, taking risky trips to Russia to try to bring their children back home.
In 2020, a deadly blast at Beirut port destroyed the much-beloved Sursock Museum. Parts of the 20th-century building’s architecture, reflecting both Venetian and Ottoman stylistic elements, were damaged, along with 57 works of art. Now, almost three years later, the museum has reopened.
The honors college wanted to create a program for high-achieving bilingual high school students who were uncertain about college — because they were recent immigrants, had low standardized test scores or weren’t sure what opportunities were available to them in US higher education.
Music festivals are ever-expanding enterprises, adding new locations and dates, even if they're repeating the same line-up.
Those planning a Caribbean trip this summer better check the sargassum forecast. This seaweed has been growing in excessive amounts in the Caribbean since 2011, and now growing in Mexico and parts of Florida, as well. Earlier this year, scientists detected a record bloom.
The World's Daniel Ofman spoke with Russian prisoners of war being held in a detention center in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv are using captured POWs to retrieve their own fighters in prisoner swaps.
Taiwan is having a #MeToo reckoning about sexual harassment in politics, several years after other parts of the world. Despite the relatively high number of women in public office, many instances of sexual harassment in the political scene have been ignored or covered up.
The tiny South American country of Uruguay has faced a historic drought over the last three years. Freshwater reserves are now running dangerously low. In an effort to overcome the water shortage, authorities are now supplementing public drinking water from new saltier reservoirs. And it is causing an uproar.
Hip-hop turns 50 this summer, and its influence has been felt in all corners of the globe. From the streets of the Bronx to a revolution in Beirut, from anti-apartheid messages in Cape Town to graffiti in Cairo. Throughout the summer, we will be exploring Planet Hip Hop.
This is an important case. It was the first time a court recognized the persecution of trans people in Nazi Germany. It was followed a few months later by the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, formally releasing a statement recognizing trans and cisgender queer people as victims of fascism.
On Sunday, rescue workers pulled the last survivor from the devastating crash in eastern Odisha state that has left at least 275 dead and more than a thousand injured. Relatives are now on the scene trying to locate loved ones and train services on the line have resumed. Investigators are pinpointing what caused one of the deadliest crashes in India's history.
Decades of war, mismanagement and the impact of climate change have taken a toll on Iraq’s iconic palm trees. One group is trying to help change that.
Last year, an estimated 3,500 Rohingya Muslims boarded wooden boats and set off from Bangladesh, across hundreds of miles of dangerous waters in the Bay of Bengal, in search of starting new lives in Malaysia or Indonesia. Hundreds of them never made it.
It only took one listen for musician Sergei Grin (a.k.a. “Gringo”) to hear the blues and know that's what he was meant to play. Grin, who is originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, now travels around Serbia with his guitar, singing American country music and blues.
As the NBA Finals kickoff, the 28-year-old Serbian basketball star is making waves with fans back in his hometown of Sombor, Serbia.
A bill making its way through the Legislature in Brazil could limit Indigenous land claims in the country, and potentially call into question large swaths of land already demarcated for Indian reservations.
Ariya Tok is one of nearly two dozen Cambodian American graduates who took part in the Cal State Long Beach cultural ceremony, an event with special significance to the Cambodian Americans living in an area that has the largest such population in the United States.
In many ways, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has become a war of identity and self-expression. Many Ukranians are turning to tattoos to show their patriotism.
Webcam studio owners say the business is legal. Anti-sex-trafficking groups say the Andrew Tate case tells a different story.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into what happened when Colombia’s military took on police work in Cali, the country’s third-largest city.
“The Kerala Story” is a fictionalized film that has sparked debate in India. It's about Hindu women being tricked into joining ISIS. The filmmakers say they are uncovering a hidden truth, while others say the film is exaggerated and divisive.
The Razzouk family in the Old City of Jerusalem has been doing Christian themed tattoos going back to the 1300s. Today, tattoo artist Wassim Razzouk and his sons carry on a Coptic Christian tradition of tattoo artistry, attracting people who come from all over the world to the family shop to get inked.
In 1989, the Ukrainian punk rock band Vopli Vidopliassova released an album called “Tantsi” or “Dances.” In 2019, the original session tape was rediscovered, and in 2023, Tantsi was finally officially released.
When Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine began on Feb. 24, 2022, the pursuits of many of Ukraine's leading artists and cultural institutions came to a halt. The World takes a look back at the myriad ways in which war impacted artistic and cultural expression in Ukraine, and how advocates continue to work tirelessly to keep making art against all odds.
Last December, in yet another blow to women’s rights in Afghanistan, the Taliban announced a ban on women working for nongovernmental organizations. Thousands of women lost their jobs overnight. The months since have been some of the most difficult for the women NGO workers.
Brazil ranks third in the world for the most social media usage, following India and Indonesia. Now, a controversial, 3-year-old bill is weaving its way through Congress. It could regulate social media platforms in the same way as TV and radio. The “Fake News Bill” has staunch supporters, but some also accuse it of being a form of censorship.
US consumers have plenty of reasons to snap up electric vehicles. They are helping the US meet its climate goals, and new owners may qualify for a tax credit. But some of their old cars end up on roads across Africa. These vehicles provide vital transportation in poor countries, but they also cause pollution and are unsafe.
Authorities managed to avoid a worst-case scenario at the holiest site in Jerusalem during the overlapping religious holidays of Easter, Passover and Ramadan that ended a few weeks ago. Now, things are returning to normal at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
For many Ukrainians and Russians who’ve fled their homes since the war started, returning is not an option. So, they’re beginning again in new places and confronting new challenges. As part of our ongoing series on starting over, we visit Cazilhac, a tiny village in southwest France, where a humanitarian bus brought dozens of Ukrainian families to safety around a year ago. Today, just three of them remain.
After Afghanistan fell to the Taliban almost two years ago in August, tens of thousands of Afghans made their way to the United States. They were allowed to stay under a program called “humanitarian parole.” But that status expires in a couple of months, and although they can renew one time, many are calling for Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would allow them to seek more permanent status.
Russia's long persecuted ethnic minorities — Buryats, Chechens and Yakuts — have seized on the war in Ukraine to make a case for the independence of their own regions. They say the conflict has laid bare Russia's violent and imperial mentality, not just in Eastern Europe, but within its own borders.
Over the weekend, President Joe Biden announced that the US will support a joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots. Administration officials also said that the US will allow its allies to supply Ukraine with advanced fighter jets, including US-made F-16s. The battle for air superiority in Ukraine has been ongoing since Russia's invasion, and now, Ukraine hopes that F-16s can help them counteract Russia's advantages.
They call themselves the Gomi Hiroi Samurai — or the “Samurai Who Pick Up Litter.” These sword-wielding eco-warriors have turned garbage collecting into a choreographed performance.
The people who collect garbage for recycling organized among themselves to change how they are paid and how they are treated. Today, waste pickers are officially recognized as part of the municipal waste system.
Meanwhile, the ongoing fighting in Sudan continues to make it difficult for aid to get into the country, leaving many children at risk of starvation.
Despite the ongoing attacks, Ukrainians around the world are celebrating Vyshyvanka Day on Thursday. The vyshyvanka is an elaborately embroidered shirt or dress traditionally worn in Ukraine.
Waste pickers collect and send garbage to Dharavi, an informal settlement where thousands of recyclers live and work. They sort through the piles, and clean and separate the different types of materials destined for a second or third life. Without them, much of the city's trash would end up in incinerators or dumped in landfills.
The US government changed the rules governing how people can seek asylum at the US-Mexico border last week, as a pandemic-era policy called Title 42 expired. Although it may become more difficult, thousands of people are still making their way from South America to the US border, including migrants from all over the world. Some are making their way through the Darien Gap, a dangerous jungle that separates Colombia and Panama.
He started off doing simple phishing attacks. But the Russian, who is known as Bassterlord, soon graduated to planting ransomware in emails, holding companies' data hostage. And he quickly became one of the best. In her exclusive interview with the hacker, Dina Temple-Raston of the "Click Here" podcast delves into the ransomware underworld.
Waste pickers play an important role in the recycling process. But for waste pickers working in a landfill in Accra, Ghana, it’s dangerous work.
The Romanian blouse, IA, is one of the best-known symbols of Romania’s culture. But cheap replicas manufactured in China and India threaten the future of the homegrown industry.
The United States announced an additional $1.2 billion in military assistance for Ukraine on Tuesday. To get more perspective on US support for Ukraine, The World's Daniel Ofman spoke with US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink.
The number of migrants waiting on the Mexican side of the border appears to be dwindling. Shelters in cities like Ciudad Juárez are emptying as many migrants have decided to surrender to US authorities before Title 42 ends on Thursday evening.
Talks are underway in Saudi Arabia to end the fighting in Sudan. But so far, there’s been no major breakthrough. The World’s Shirin Jaafari spoke with Fahad Nazer, spokesperson for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, about where the talks are headed.
At the start of the war in Ukraine, much of Russia's cultural elite fled the country, including playwrights, filmmakers, artist and curators. A year on, they have established themselves in new cities across the world, a century after a previous exodus of Russian writers and artists reshaped global culture.
President Nayib Bukele has enjoyed a sky-high approval rating of 91% for his crackdown on crime. But thousands of families say their sons and husbands have been unjustly imprisoned under his recent suspension of civil liberties.
After turning out tens of thousands of anti-government protesters every weekend for more than four months, they did it again. On Saturday night, more than 100,000 people turned out in central Tel Aviv to say no to the government's plans for judicial reform.
Last year's winners from Ukraine are unable to host in-country this year due to ongoing conflict with Russia, so Liverpool is stepping in. To learn more about it, The World's Carol Hills spoke to Dr. Eurovision, himself, Paul Jordan.
The legendary group Obiní Batá is celebrating 30 years of music and women’s empowerment in Cuba. But the road to acceptance and success was not easy.
Digital and human rights activists say Ballegh’s very existence flies in the face of free speech provisions enshrined in Iraq’s post-Saddam Hussein constitution 20 years ago.
In Spain, there have been an increasing number of punk concerts taking place each month, with the genre seeing a rise in popularity.
Widely viewed as a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis has been on a path to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at universities as part of his plan to overhaul publicly funded higher education.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into a rebel group's propensity toward battle as a function of the group's control of resources.
France's energy union has threatened mass power cuts over Emmanuel Macron's plans to raise the retirement age after months of violent street protests. The powerful CGT union has already cut power to an airport and school that the president was visiting this month.
Scientists have been studying the changes in animal physiology and behavior, some going back generations, which they believe is linked to rising global temperatures. They say the adaptations are beneficial, but may have limitations in the long term.
Israelis see the Lions' Den group as terrorists, blaming it for a rise in shooting attacks. But in Nablus, many Palestinians hail these men as brave fighters standing up to the Israeli occupation.
Many people living in Georgia who fled Abkhazia in 1993 now say they are dissatisfied with the politicians in charge of their needs.
The game is loosely based on soccer, but immersed in video game culture and reality TV antics. In Barcelona, Spain, the second season of the Kings League kicks off the first weekend of May alongside the first season of the Queens League. This summer, the Prince Cup will launch for kids ages 9 to 11.
UN human rights groups have recorded over 500 children killed and nearly 1,000 injured from the Ukraine war. The Ukrainian hospital system has been overwhelmed, and only a fraction of injured children, like 6-year-old Karolina Daremyan, have been able to make the journey to the US for complicated medical procedures and rehabilitation.
A row over cheap Ukrainian grain threatens to fracture a show of solidarity between the EU and Ukraine. Romanian farmer Ionut Spiță said his profits took a hit due to a glut of cheaper Ukrainian grain and oilseeds intended for Africa and the Middle East that flooded Eastern European markets.
Author Jonny Steinberg’s new book, "Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage," explores the complex relationship between Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, two of the world’s best-known freedom fighters. Steinberg joined The World’s host Marco Werman discuss the fraught political partnership of these iconic revolutionaries.
Pollution and trash carried from the Tijuana River to the Pacific Ocean have long plagued swimmers and surfers on both sides of the US-Mexico border. A recent court settlement is bringing hope for cooperation.
This week, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said Portugal should formally apologize for its role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Portuguese were responsible for selling nearly 6 million people into slavery — mostly in Brazil. Some activists and scholars say an apology is just a start and there's still a long way to go.
University professors and researchers depend on getting published. So it was considered a bold move when the editors of two prestigious brain journals resigned en masse this month after the publisher refused to lower the fees it charges academics to publish their work.
The Indian government’s new school textbooks have significant deletions in them related to Muslims in Indian history. Some historians accuse the ruling BJP government of rewriting the country's history to suit its Hindu nationalist ideology.
The bitcoin cryptocurrency has seen its ups and downs lately, gaining and losing 10% of its value in just the past week. Nowhere is this volatility felt more intensely than in El Salvador, which became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender in 2021.
More than 100,000 Armenians still live in Nagorno-Karabakh, and they depend on the Lachin Corridor as the only road that connects to the rest of Armenia.
Fighting continued on Wednesday on the outskirts of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. A short-term ceasefire is in place, but the United Nations says it is only partially successful. Over the last 12 days, hundreds of people have been killed. Sudanese residents from the capital region are making tough decisions about leaving.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into how geography guides state formation, with a focus on the "fractured-land hypothesis."
Novels about queer topics have been pulled from bookstores in Russia under a recent law that bans all mention of LGBTQ life in popular culture. It's part of a regional crackdown against novelists and poets.
New research shows that military spending grew for an eighth consecutive year in 2022 to an all-time high of $2,240 billion. Europe saw a sharp increase over the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, China has expanded its reach, while the US wants to maintain its military superiority as the world's largest military.
Hundreds of children were stolen from their parents during the dictatorship in Argentina, but over the years, some have been reunited with their families.
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed about 7 million people worldwide, ravaging health care systems and economies. Dr. Atul Gawande, head of global health at the US Agency for International Development, spoke with The World's Carolyn Beeler about how pandemic recovery "will require as much focus and attention as it did when it first started."
Indian businessman Gautam Adani is one of the world's wealthiest people. Now, his methods for acquiring the enormous wealth and close ties to Prime Minister Narendra Modi are being investigated by India's Supreme Court.
“We don't have much time to convince all the stakeholders in the world,” said award recipient Zafer Kizilkaya about the urgency of protecting marine life.
The fighting between Sudan's rival armed forces continues to have a devastating impact on civilians and civilian infrastructure across the country. Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed. The fighting has also damaged Sudan's health facilities, making it difficult for the country's health workers to help those caught in the crosshairs.
Over the last week, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva courted controversy with his remarks on the conflict in Ukraine, causing tensions between Brazil and the US.
The World's Carol Hills spoke to Anne Nejs, an urban ecologist for the city of Utrecht, who worked on creating the doorbell back in 2021. She says mid-April is the best time of the season to go fish-doorbelling.
The Moors, who ruled in Spain, had a network of canals 800 years ago that moved water from the Sierra Nevada down into cities and farms. Archaeologists today are trying to uncover those canals, and put the ancient wisdom about irrigation to use today.
Former President Jair Bolsonaro is back in Brazil after a three-month hiatus in Florida. Allies say he’s ready to fight the new government. But Bolsonaro faces a string of lawsuits that are working against him.
Canada Post has released a unique Eid stamp this year that features a centuries-old artifact from Iran. Museum curator Fahmida Suleman discussed the project with The World.
In the ongoing series, “The Big Fix," The World reports on what communities, individuals, governments and businesses are doing to tackle the climate crisis.
A Syrian American man has filed a civil lawsuit in the US against the government of Syria for allegedly detaining and torturing him in 2012. Obada Mzaik was 22 years old when he was arrested at the Damascus airport.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the history of Ukraine's fight for independence — through peacekeeping.
Owner Ahmed Mahmood tells The World about his own journey, the political situation in Yemen and how he's created a space for those observing the month of fasting.
The “greenhouse-in-a-box” is part of a solution designed to help smallholder farmers cope with the vagaries of a changing climate. The design, essentially a low-cost, scaled-down version of a standard greenhouse, is the brainchild of an Indian startup called Kheyti.
Garbage segregators in India often have to migrate in search of work. Many in Bangalore, India, also face constant harassment from the police and local residents, often facing eviction from informal settlements if they can't afford to pay bribes.
The country’s military, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary began fighting on Saturday, following weeks of tensions. Pressure from international and regional players has so far failed to deescalate the conflict.
The singer-songwriter has always straddled between the worlds of globalization and the traditions of her homeland.
Mohannad Saad Mohammad lost an eye in Iraq’s protests that became known as the Tishreen or the October movement. The demonstrations that began in 2019 have mostly dissipated but Mohammad says he won’t stop fighting for a better Iraq.
There are still lots of unknowns about a leaked trove of classified US intelligence information. Secrets about Russia's war in Ukraine made their way online, then, eventually, into the news. The incident has been embarrassing for the Pentagon and the White House. In Russia, officials at the Kremlin and media commentators are all paying close attention.
Author and human rights activist Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode documented the heartbreaking stories of the Chibok families nine years after the Boko Haram abductions that gripped the world’s attention.
The Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone has become an important part of modern warfare used in conflicts around the globe from Ukraine to Ethiopia. But many Armenians believe the drone is responsible for war crimes.
Two months after devastating earthquakes killed more than 57,000 people in Turkey and Syria, survivors are living in tent camps and shipping containers outside the ruins of their former homes. As mobile businesses and streetside kebab shops return to the city of Antakya, some people are determined to stay in their hometown to grieve and rebuild.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into what the socialization patterns of elephants can teach us about human evolution.
Chinese authorities have sentenced two of the country’s most prominent human rights lawyers to more than a decade in prison, each on subversion charges. Sophie Luo Shengchun, the wife of jailed dissident Ding Jiaxi, speaks with The World’s Marco Werman.
Teachers at the Acorn Center for Early Education and Care in Boston’s Chinatown use a curriculum that teaches students how to manage big feelings — especially pandemic-related ones — which families have recognized as a growing need.
For decades, India has depended on Russia for its weapons supply. It's the cornerstone of the two countries' ties, which go back to the Soviet era. But it can also be a liability, as India found out last week when it learned that a major shipment of Russian arms had fallen through because of the war in Ukraine.
Uganda recently passed a law that criminalizes homosexuality, punishable by death. LGBTQ people and human rights advocates fear that the Ugandan law may empower anti-LGBTQ movements elsewhere on the continent.
Migrants from as far south as Chile are walking north to the United States, hoping for a better life. But before they make it to that border, they must make it across Mexico's southern border.
Thousands of Iraqi children who lived under the brutal rule of ISIS in northern Iraq still face obstacles. Iraqi families who were issued official identification documents by ISIS continue to have a hard time getting their kids into school, because the government doesn't recognize their paperwork.
The beating heart of village life in Spain is the local bar, and many of these establishments need urgent life support. Spanish politicians have voted to offer the watering holes public subsidies. Their reasoning: bars serve much more than beer.
How did patriarchy become common around the world, and can we change the dominance of men in societies? Science journalist Angela Saini explores these questions in her new book, "The Patriarchs; The Origins of Inequality."
The food website Taste Atlas recently rated the light and creamy bundz, made from sheep's milk, as one of the top cheeses in the world. The cheese doesn't come from France or Italy — it comes from the southern mountains of Poland.
During Holy Week in Guatemala, many people participate in the tradition of creating elaborate alfombra, or colorful flower carpets made out of sawdust on the streets for processions to pass over.
Pinpointing the “end” of the coronavirus pandemic depends on the vantage point. The World's host Marco Werman spoke with Dr. Michael Mina, a leading epidemiologist and the chief science officer at EMed, a digital health care company, along with Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist and professor at Columbia University, to learn more about the "bumpy, difficult off-ramp" from COVID-19.
Bogotá is trying to curb sexual harassment against women on public transportation systems. It’s trained more than 500 police officers as part of the purple patrol to respond to cases of gender-based violence. Female police officers also hand out leaflets with information about hotlines that women can call for assistance.
Dozens of people who are homeless die every year in Spain, often on the streets — and usually alone. But one small hospice program is trying to make a difference by connecting with homeless people and spending time with them, even at the very end of life.
In his latest video, Singh, a preacher calling for a Sikh homeland known as Khalistan, says he'll surrender at a time of his own choosing.
The night of April 5 marks the beginning of Passover. Traditionally, Jewish families gather around the dinner table for the holiday with a festive meal where they eat matzah and read aloud from the Haggadah. The text tells the Passover story, guiding readers through a tale of redemption. On Wednesday night, many Ukrainians will be reading the Haggadah in their own language for the first time.
Although we’re used to seeing lipless dinosaur carnivores, new data suggests they had lizard-like lips and probably couldn’t snarl.
Chris Maroleng, executive director of Good Governance Africa, talks with The World’s host Marco Werman about how Trump’s legal woes impact the rule of law in the sub-Saharan region of the continent.
The US Army missed its target by 25% during the past fiscal year. Other branches of the military are also seeing a drop in recruiting.
The Anthropocene Working Group is voting on a so-called Golden Spike, a sedimentary layer somewhere on Earth that best exemplifies the global impact of humans on planet Earth. It's the last, big task in formally defining the Anthropocene, which is being proposed as a new age in geologic time.
Ecuador’s National Assembly is debating the future of President Guillermo Lasso. If it votes to remove Lasso, it would be the first impeachment of an Ecuadorian president since the country’s return to democracy in 1979.
Concerned that her mother's legacy would be forgotten, filmmaker Akuol de Mabior set out to create a new documentary called “No Simple Way Home.” It tells the story of Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior's contributions to the liberation of South Sudan.
As annual inflation tops 100%, a 30-year high, with the cost of meat and fruit skyrocketing, many Argentines are keeping their savings in dollars to resist devaluation of the peso.
This week, a new anthology of films called "African Folktales, Reimagined" premiered on Netflix. The series of short films was done in partnership with UNESCO as an effort to support more emerging filmmakers from Africa.
The international nonprofit Global Witness has ranked the Philippines at the top of its list of deadliest countries to be an eco-activist. Dozens of environmentalists and land defenders also die each year or end up on government watch lists.
The 15th-century Doctrine of Discovery provided the legal basis for the colonial-era seizure of Native lands. Sociology professor Cora Voyageur, who is also a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, joined The World's host Carol Hills to discuss the significance of the Vatican's repudiation of the doctrine.
The Boston Bruins are on the verge of making history — eclipsing the Montreal Canadiens' coveted record of most points scored in a regular season, set back in 1977.
Her exquisite piano compositions drew fans to the Jerusalem monastery where she lived after fleeing Ethiopia, in a stunning fourth act to her life.
This month, the Ukrainian government issued an eviction notice to clergy at Pecherska Lavra, where some Orthodox Christians may still have close ties with Russia.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the pre-history of international relations.
In 1973, the last United States combat troops left South Vietnam, ending America’s direct military involvement in the Vietnam War.
US Vice President Kamala Harris began her weeklong visit to the African continent this week in Ghana. She plans to focus on youth entrepreneurship, and to make a claim for supporting some African countries, as China and Russia have made diplomatic and financial inroads.
Cambodian artifacts were often looted out of the country beginning in the 1970s, under control of the Khmer Rouge. At least 13 antiquities have been returned this month amid a push in the art world from artists and scholars to return looted works to their countries of origin.
Only five Trappist breweries remain in Belgium, known for producing the famous Westmalle brand. Beer consultant Sofie Vanrafelghem had the rare opportunity to visit one of the monasteries, and she joined The World's host Marco Werman from Antwerp to share her experience.
Tens of thousands of young American men went to Canada to avoid being conscripted to fight in Vietnam. Some Canadians welcomed them, while others wanted nothing to do with these "hippies." But many of those who stayed — and half of them did — would go on to be leaders in their communities as politicians, environmental activists and teachers and have a lasting impact on Canada's small towns.
As the former president heads to China, Taiwan's current president, Tsai Ing-Wen, is heading to the Americas this week. The diplomatic trips come as voters prepare for this year’s presidential campaigns.
The West African country of Nigeria is lucky to have a long coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. In the coastal community of Lagos, where many people didn't grow up learning to swim, interest in surfing and water sports is growing.
Mexico is hard at work on a huge development project that the country’s president hopes will rival the Panama Canal. It won’t be another waterway, but when it’s finished, the Interoceanic Corridor will connect ports on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Mexico in numerous ways. President Andres Manuel López Obrador is looking to the US for support on the project. But Indigenous communities are fighting the decision.
At Spain’s Institute of Science and Concrete Technology, engineers are trying to find ways to keep buildings and bridges from falling down. The lab is getting attention after the deadly earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria in February.
The 18 tracks on "Pèlerinaj," or “pilgrimage” in Haitian Creole, are a mix of sacred Vodou chants and traditional Haitian rhythms with funk, jazz, rock and electronic music.
Dharavi is known as the largest informal settlement in Asia, where 1 million people live in 1 square mile of Mumbai. For decades, it's been slated for redevelopment. Plans are finally taking shape, but debates remain over where people will live and work.
In Russia, in order to attend soccer matches in the country's Premier League, fans now need to present a "Fan ID." The state says it’s about public safety and security. But Russian soccer fans aren’t buying it.
Thousands of Russian tech workers have fled to Armenia, helping the country’s tech sector double in size and fueling dramatic economic growth over the last year.
Former US Army Sgt. Kayla Williams was among the 160,000 coalition troops who were deployed for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Now, 20 years later, she reflects on her experiences with The World's host Marco Werman.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the decriminalization of abortion in Colombia, in the context of the country's legacy of war.
Ethiopian photographer and educator Aïda Muluneh is showcasing the culture of her birth country in a series of 12 photographs displayed at more than 300 bus stops across Boston, New York, Chicago and Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
Investors worry that the problems at a handful of American banks could ripple across the world economy and unexpected surprises may be lurking. But this is not 2008. Regulations in the US and Europe are much stronger today than they were 15 years ago.
Since former President Rordrigo Duterte launched his so-called “war on drugs” in 2016, convictions of law enforcement officers have been rare. But the recent murder conviction of former police officer Jeffrey Perez shows signs of justice and accountability in the overburdened courts.
Sergei Isupov lives in western Massachusetts, but the rest of his family still lives in Ukraine. They're all artists, and they use their unique forms of art to express how the current war affects each of them.
Along the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia sits Lake Kariba, where low water levels have interrupted power supply to both countries — profoundly impacting the economy.
Kolkata's 150-year-old tram system is limping along. It's down to just two lines and there is little political will, or room in the city's crowded streets, to bring the streetcars back to their former glory days. The tram does have a small but loyal band of supporters who want to keep it alive.
Monday marks 20 years since the start of “Operation Iraqi Freedom," the US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the president, Saddam Hussein, and aimed to spread democracy in the country. Two decades later, Iraqis who've lived through these turbulent and violent years share their thoughts about the war's impact on their lives, about how they view the US now and about their hopes and concerns for the future of Iraq.
As ice sheets from glaciers melt, dozens of lakes around the world risk overflowing, causing potentially deadly avalanches and flooding in nearby towns and villages. In Huaraz, Peru, residents hope to find ways to prevent Lake Palcacocha from overflowing again — before it's too late.
Sasha Shulyahina was 38-weeks pregnant when Russian forces invaded Ukraine in late February 2022. Motherhood and her faith continue to sustain her through a year of war.
Guyana is hoping that newly discovered offshore crude reserves can help transform the country's economy and offset its ongoing poverty crisis. But some people are concerned about what this may mean for the environment.
Arkhyp Kuindzhi is a revered artist who was born in the Russian empire. He was from Mariupol, which is now part of the modern Ukrainian state, sparking a debate among art historians: Should he be considered a Ukrainian or a Russian artist?
Yoselin Calcurian, 35, is among some 400,000 Venezuelans who went to Brazil, fleeing economic collapse and political chaos. She and many others say they are now struggling to find jobs and learn a new language.
The investigative newspaper Etilaatroz opened a new newsroom in an office building in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC.
Years of war and violence have interrupted and undermined Iraq’s music scene, with many musicians fleeing the country. But the current relative stability has created a space for its revival.
In Ghana, a shortage of childhood vaccines has mothers traveling from hospital to hospital in search of immunizations to protect their infants. As a result, measles are breaking out in some parts of the country.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into parental leave and caregiving in various affluent democracies between 1965 to 2016.
The economic crisis crippling Cuba is causing shortages of everything, from gas to food to medical supplies. Filmmaker Armando Guerra, who lives in Valencia, Spain, recently returned to his home city of Camaguey in central Cuba, where he found that things are worse than he expected.
Iraqi author Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has a new book called, "A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East’s Long War." It's an ode to a city shattered by war. Abdul-Ahad speaks with The World’s Marco Werman about his childhood home, the cycle of sectarian violence set in motion by the US-led invasion in 2003 and what might lie ahead for the centuries-old, cosmopolitan city.
Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi was thrust into the global spotlight in 2008 after he threw his shoes at then-US President George W. Bush. Two decades after the US-led invasion of Iraq, he says his country is still paying the price.
The lights may be off, but "crisis mode" is definitely switched on in South Africa. Despite a national state of disaster and a new minister of electricity, scheduled power outages, known as load-shedding, continue to heavily impact citizens.
Georgia was once considered a favorite among countries seeking EU membership. But in recent years, the country’s majority Georgian Dream party has faced accusations of failing to improve the judiciary, protecting LGBTQ rights and of decreasing press freedoms.
Nearly 30,000 Ukrainians have fled to Georgia since Russia invaded the country last year. The Georgian government has offered Ukrainians fleeing war some temporary support with free housing in hotels but much of that aid is drying up.
As Ukrainian athletes train for the Summer Olympics next year in Paris, it is unclear whether or not Russian athletes will be allowed to compete in the Games.
Ji produces paintings using traditional Chinese methods, such as calligraphy and ink painting, to address serious contemporary topics such as migration, the environment and social issues.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into how the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 not only dismantled the government but destroyed an entire nation, forcing a mass exodus of certain ethnic and religious minorities.
With continued violations of women's rights in Afghanistan, US Special Envoy Rina Amiri tells The World's host Marco Werman that not normalizing the Taliban government is crucial to fighting hardline elements in the country, and for setting a precedent in other places.
Many migrant farmworkers in Spain say they can't afford housing, so they live in makeshift plastic housing near the farms where they work. Local governments have tried to remove these informal settlements and relocate people to shelters far from the farms — but they keep building back.
Three years after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, and masks became a primary tool to combat the disease's spread, their usage has dropped off dramatically around the world. But many Mexicans are holding on to their facial coverings, and cultural differences are impacting mask use around the globe.
By and large, many African countries have stayed on the sidelines of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. As major importers of wheat and fertilizers from the two warring nations, they are reluctant to jeopardize those vital supplies by taking sides, observed Olayinka Ajala, a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University in Britain.
“An Cailín Ciúin” (“The Quiet Girl”) is Ireland's first film to be nominated for best foreign language film in the Academy Awards. Language enthusiasts in Ireland are hoping that the new film will give their mother tongue a much-needed boost in a country where less than 2% of the population speak it on a daily basis.
Thousands of passengers were stranded in airports in Colombia and several other Latin American countries this week following the collapse of the budget airline, Viva Air. It's the latest airline company to fold amid decreasing passenger demand and higher oil prices.
A handful of salt-makers in Mexico are preserving an ancestral tradition of artisanal salt that goes back 2,000 years. It's a dying art form and many fear for its future amid climate change and migration.
Last month, the Cambodian government issued a warning to rapper Kea Sokun over his latest single, “Workers’ Blood,” about a garment workers’ strike, saying that it threatened national security and order.
Svyatoslav Vakarchuk is vocal about supporting Ukraine, visiting troops on the front lines and raising money for the country.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into how states determine citizenship, with a spotlight on Assam, India, as the case study.
Thousands of people gather every year in Villa de Leyva, Colombia, for the annual Astronomy Festival. Now, event organizers are working with the local government to implement lasting improvements for the town to draw more tourists to see the stars.
On Feb. 28, 1947, the Chinese Nationalist Party began killing thousands of people across the island of Taiwan, in a massacre that lasted for months. Today, Taiwan continues to debates the circumstances of that tragedy — and the legacy of Chiang Kai-Shek.
Ismail Mashal used to teach at two universities in Afghanistan. He ran his own education centers and was an outspoken critic of the Taliban’s ban on girls’ education. He was arrested earlier this month, along with another academic and a journalist.
Over the weekend, millions of Nigerians cast their vote for a new president in Africa's biggest democratic election. While many voters applaud improvement in the election process, others experienced violence at the polls. Now, comes the wait for the results.
During a rehearsal at the Odesa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in Odesa, it’s easy to forget that Ukraine is a country at war. Despite attacks on the busy port city and cultural hub, the opera house remains open.
Israel sent hundreds more troops to the occupied West Bank on Monday, a day after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis and settlers rampaged through a Palestinian town, torching homes and vehicles in the worst such violence in decades.
In parts of northern Ukraine, near the border with Belarus, Russian troops were firmly in control for several weeks early last year. One village occupied by Russian soldiers and later retaken by Ukrainian forces is in the middle of trying to rebuild.
As millions of Nigerians prepare for the presidential election on Feb. 25, the stinging economy and unemployment in the formal sector have the nation's youth particularly tuned in and ready to cast their vote.
In some small towns in northeast Spain, organizers for the Carnival holiday have told participants that they’ll risk losing public subsidies if they play songs with lyrics that denigrate women. Most people like the idea in theory, but in practice, the measure is proving tough to apply. Because with pop music, finding the line between sexist and sexy can be vexing.
The currency redesign in Nigeria is a policy decision that went into effect weeks before the presidential election that takes place on Feb. 25. Nigerians were told to turn in their old banknotes for new ones, but now, they are struggling to procure the new cash.
Amid war and displacement, Ukrainian artist Vira Ustyanska and her daughter find home in San Diego, California, as they wait for the war to end.
Sculptor Myros Dedyshyn said the reality of war changed the subject of his once-hopeful artworks. Now, he’s focused on themes like militarization, grief and self-protection.
The ongoing war in Ukraine has affected millions of people. The World’s correspondents Daniel Ofman, Durrie Bouscaren and Shirin Jaafari reflect on some of the key moments of the conflict.
The political party Nuevo Peru has been heavily involved in anti-government protests that have recently swept across the South American country.
When Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine began on Feb. 24, 2022, the pursuits of many of Ukraine's leading artists and cultural institutions came to a halt. The World takes a look back at the myriad ways in which war impacted artistic and cultural expression in Ukraine, and how advocates continue to work tirelessly to keep making art against all odds.
In the weeks leading up to Russia's full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, veteran Leonid Ostalsev anticipated a call to report for duty. Tens of thousands of Russian troops were already accumulating near Ukraine’s borders. He reflects on a year of wins and losses.
After nearly a full year of war with Russia, Ukrainian leaders say victory will come when the Russians make a full retreat out of Ukraine — including the Crimean Peninsula.
The Talyzenkov family heads back to Ukraine by train for a weeklong visit. The two children are eager to reunite with their father, who is currently serving in the army.
After a catastrophic earthquake destroyed northwest Syria, assistance is slowly trickling in. It took a full week for the UN to strike a deal with the Syrian regime to open two additional crossings into the region. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield talks with host Marco Werman about the situation.
Malala Yousafzai's new Oscar-nominated documentary, "Stranger at the Gate," features a former US marine suffering from PTSD who sets out to bomb a mosque in Indiana, but changes his life around after the community embraces him. Yousafzai joins The World's Marco Werman to discuss the film and her own experiences.
A humanitarian crisis looms in Brazil's Yanomami territory, where communities have been ravaged by malnutrition, malaria, COVID-19 and widespread illegal mining. Now, the central government is trying to crack down on illegal mining and support these communities after years of neglect.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter, takes a deep dive this week into the ways in which US communities that most bear the costs of war are also more prone to right-wing radicalization.
More than a week after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Syria, outside help has been slow to arrive. Parts of the country that have been impacted fall into two main categories: ones that are under government control and those that are not. In opposition-held areas relief has been almost nonexistent.
Big, fast-fashion brands have traditionally ignored the second-hand market, but it’s grown too large not to get into the game. H&M and Spanish clothing giant Zara are leading a new trend, opening portals where customers can sell and buy their used, brand-specific shirts and skirts. The companies say they’re joining the circular economy but critics call it greenwashing.
The latest demonstrations across China ended when the central government unleashed a digital arsenal that was less deadly than the tanks used to quell the 1989 protests, but just as effective. China managed to use the internet to defuse national outrage over President Xi Jinping’s strict COVID-19 policies without firing a single shot.
While stories of near-miraculous rescues have flooded the airwaves in recent days, tens of thousands of dead have also been found during the same period.
Spyros Tsoutsoumpis, a lecturer in modern European history at the University of Manchester, discusses with The World's host Carol Hills the implications of Greece banning the far-right Greek National Party from running in elections.
The Philippines' inflation rate hit a new 14-year high in January, putting a damper on what economists had previously hoped would be a leveling-off in 2023. And it's forced many people to look for extra work to support their incomes.
Grassroots organizations have popped up all around Kyiv to send support — both humanitarian and military assistance — to the frontlines.
Pop composer Burt Bacharach, who died on Feb. 8, 2023, at the age of 94, left a legacy of classic songs beloved by generations. Although often belittled as writing "easy listening,"his songs were deep and complex.
Many kids' products on the market are not always inclusive or accommodate unique needs — including religious ones. Ontario mother Tina Singh decided to design sports helmets for her three boys that wouldn't compromise their Sikh faith — or their safety.
This corner of the globe sits at the intersection of three tectonic plates, including the Arabian Plate that’s moving northward into Europe. Pressure along the fault has been building, and when it finally released, it appears that an area nearly 120 miles long and 15 miles wide got displaced, unleashing the earthquake.
NASA is working with Senegalese astronomers to measure the dimensions of asteroids in outer space. Astronomer Maram Kaire speaks with The World's host Marco Werman about the work of "chasing after the shadow cast by the asteroids."
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the function of ad-hoc organizations that are formed to address a specific crisis — and then often get dissolved when the crisis ends.
The island nation of Kiribati says it will return to the Pacific Islands Forum, ending over six months of turmoil for the strategic bloc that represents nearly 20 nations and territories across the Pacific Ocean.
The Sagrada Familía church, designed 140 years ago by architect Antoni Gaudí, is still under construction. Now, plans to finally construct its front entrance have sparked controversy due to its potential impact on nearby residential neighborhoods.
Entire neighborhoods have been leveled in northwestern Syria, where an earthquake struck in the early hours of Monday morning. This region of Syria is home to millions of people displaced by years of civil war. Even before the quake, they had been living in already dire conditions.
Dani Larkin was too young to have lived through the troubles in Northern Ireland. But growing up along the Armagh-Monaghan border in Ireland, close to Northern Ireland, she knew all about the sectarian tension and conflict in the area. She also knew about kindness and a history that brings people together.
The death toll has surpassed 3,400, with thousands of others injured after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck large parts of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday. Rescue teams are trying to find people buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Rescue workers and residents in multiple cities are searching for survivors, after a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked wide swaths of Turkey and Syria early on Monday.
The Peruvian city of Cuzco is usually teeming with visitors, but because of ongoing protests, only 4% of its hotel rooms were occupied last month. Many of residents say the situation has become critical.
A controversial housing dispute this week reveals a deep strain on the intake system for migrants.
A ringworm outbreak among Spanish teens has been traced back to barbershops and a fashionable haircut: the fade. Spanish dermatologists blame dirty electric razors.
What are Washington's current strategic goals and limitations in Ukraine? And how do they align with Kyiv? Derek Chollet, a counselor at the US State Department who advises Secretary of State Antony Blinken, joined The World's host Marco Werman to shed some light.
Belgium has to decide how to proceed amid calls for sanctions against Russia's diamond industry. The Belgian city of Antwerp plays a big role in the global diamond trade, and would have much to lose. Hans Merket, of the International Peace Information Service (IPIS), joined the World's host Marco Werman from Antwerp to discuss the situation.
After civil war broke out in his country, singer-songwriter Bahjat and his family had to flee Libya. But that didn't stop him from pursuing his dreams. Bahjat now sings a blend of Arabic and English songs in a genre he calls "A-pop," or Arabic pop.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the politics of patronage in Brazil.
When the Chinese government made the decision to relax its pandemic restrictions and allow for travel abroad again, tourism professionals in the Philippines welcomed the news, but concerns linger about the expected increase in mass tourism.
Rahul Gandhi, head of India's opposition Congress party, started a unity march last September from the southern tip of the country, which ended on Monday. Gandhi is trying to drum up support for his party, opposition to the ruling BJP and, many observers say, trying to uphold democracy in the face of what's becoming an increasingly religious state.
In recent months, reports have emerged that at least two men, one from Zambia and another from Tanzania, were killed while fighting for the Wagner group in Ukraine. Wagner reportedly recruited the men from Russian prisons, promising them amnesty.
Jon DiMaggio, chief security analyst at Analyst1, spent more than a year inside LockBit private channels interacting with LockBitSupp and other members. He recently released a report called "Ransomware Diaries: Volume 1," that revealed how he infiltrated the group and what he learned while he was on the inside.
Most casualties from the suicide bombing were police officers, in a building located in a high-security zone with other government buildings.
Beijing signs onto a deal with the Taliban to extract oil from the north of Afghanistan. Graeme Smith, a senior consultant for the International Crisis Group, discusses the implications of the agreement with The World's host Carol Hills.
In Brazil, eating pork used to have negative connotations. But A Casa do Porco, or The Pork’s House, in downtown São Paulo, has transformed pork into a gourmet food, kicking off a culinary trend throughout the country.
When Russia started drafting men to fight in Ukraine last fall, thousands fled to neighboring countries in Central Asia. The draft has been paused and some are returning home. But less so for members of the LGBTQ community, who say the government's increasing hostility has made Russia unsafe.
A researcher at Tufts University near Boston discovered an old book full of research on starvation written by Jewish doctors imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto.
A new BBC documentary looking at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat riots has sparked controversy in India. The government is trying to ban it while students and activists are finding ways to watch it in defiance. Rana Ayyub, author of the book "Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up," discussed the situation with The World's host Marco Werman.
They’re tiny, they’re toxic, they’re everywhere. Cigarette butts are a huge source of pollution in Spain and lawmakers have said, enough. They're ordering cigarette makers to pay for the cleanup, but smokers worry they’ll end up footing the bill.
More than 50 people have been killed in southern Peru in protests that broke out in December, and have resulted in street battles between police forces and largely Indigenous groups of protesters who have fought back with rocks, slingshots and homemade rockets.
A court in Canada has ordered the government to repatriate 23 of its citizens who have been detained in camps for suspected ISIS members and their families in northeastern Syria. If not challenged, this would be the largest repatriation of Canadians from Syria so far.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into Ahrar al-Sham, one faction in the Syrian war, and the strategies it used to manage alliances among other rebel factions.
Many Syrian families in Turkey face school enrollment challenges due to a Turkish law that says no more than 30% of schoolchildren in a single class can be foreigners. Families in border cities like Gaziantep say their children are being turned away with few alternatives.
In Taiwan, cases of the coronavirus have been relatively low for a while, with many people feeling safe celebrating the holiday there this year.
Yuxin Wu, a second-generation gehu player at the Berklee College of Music, is on a mission to revive the Chinese string instrument with its unique vibrational sound.
“Tár,” about a virtuoso female conductor, has shone a spotlight on the continuing dearth of women leading major orchestras worldwide.
The 1995 Bollywood film “Dilwale Duhania Le Jayenge,” or "DDLJ," is the longest-running film in India’s history, screening daily for 27 years. Now, the irresistible love story is heading to Broadway.
Panic spread across Pakistan as many major cities, along with remote towns and villages across the country, were left in darkness as authorities struggled to make even partial restorations of the power supply, after an energy-saving measure by the government backfired.
Shakira's release this week shot up to the top of the charts. It's a scathing breakup song with her ex: Spanish soccer star Gerard Piqué.
Developmental brain disorders are rarely discussed in Ghana. A lack of adequate awareness and facilities for early diagnosis makes it tough to manage. And children with special needs often face discrimination in terms of inadequate health care, education and social engagement.
As Germany faces mounting pressure to supply tanks to Kyiv for the ongoing war in Ukraine, retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis talks with The World's host Marco Werman about what the delivery of heavy weapons could mean for the war.
Growing up in Brazil as a Black man, Dalton Paula said he missed seeing people who looked like him on movies and TV. At 40, he now creates paintings, photos and installations about Black communities. In 2021, he and his partner also turned their home into an art school called Sertão Negro, or Black Hinterland.
The “City of Faith” museum exhibit looks at the New York City's religious roots and immigrant experience, with a special focus on the South Asian community after 9/11. Curator Azra Dawood tells The World what inspired her and why such a discussion is important.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has made good on a series of campaign promises to defend the Amazon and empower Indigenous peoples. He already signed an executive order to relaunch a billion-dollar Amazon fund, where foreign governments can contribute to forest protection, among six other orders.
It’s the largest single wave of Cuban migrants since Fidel Castro’s revolution in the 1950s.
Mursal Nabizada, who decided to remain in Afghanistan after the Taliban took over in 2021, was killed by gunmen on Jan. 15, along with her bodyguard. A friend and former colleague of hers, Fawzia Koofi, speaks with The World’s host Marco Werman about her memories of Nabizada and the ongoing plight of women in the country.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made a promise to roll back illegal mining in the Amazon. But he has a more complicated relationship with legal mining. Indigenous activists continue to battle over a new gold mine project managed by a Canadian firm.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has stressed the importance of the grain deal, saying that it needs long-term protection in order to avoid a global food crisis.
Brazil’s new President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has promised to promote sustainable development for the Amazon — stopping deforestation while keeping agribusiness thriving. This is not an easy task.
Rescuers are still searching the debris of a passenger plane that crashed in Nepal's Himalayan foothills for three missing people, who are believed to be dead.
The attack on Brazil's capital on Sunday rattled the entire country. But as the dust settles, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has consolidated even more support as political leaders denounce the attack in a rare moment of unity.
Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is the most-repeated goal in the fight against climate change. But as each new year is among recorded history’s hottest, is it still a viable one?
Russian activist Anastasia Shevchenko spoke out against many injustices in her home country. In 2019, she was put under house arrest and was not even allowed to be with her sick daughter as she was dying. A new documentary, "Anastasia," follows Shevchenko as she sets out on a journey to scatter her daughter's ashes in the Black Sea.
In the Iranian diaspora community of Los Angeles, members of the heavy metal group TarantisT have added their artistic voices to the protests in Iran. Arash Rahbary is the band's singer and bassist. He speaks to host Marco Werman.
Chinese farmers plant the largest amount of potatoes in the world, and the country produces about 20% of the global potato output. But while fresh potatoes are a traditional part of the Chinese national diet, they’re viewed as a vegetable rather than as a staple, and China’s per capita consumption of potato is below the global average. In 2015, the Chinese government decided to try and change that.
Bullfighting has become less popular as views about animal rights change in Colombia. But in some parts of the country, it is still a highly esteemed tradition.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Arctic Council has been on hiatus. This week's Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive into the history of the council as a model of international cooperation.
As of Monday, Haiti no longer has any democratically elected government officials, after the terms for the remaining senators in government expired. Journalist Widlore Mérancourt, editor-in-chief of AyiboPost, discusses the worsening situation with The World's host Marco Werman.
At the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden made it clear that migration at the southern border is one of the most pressing issues.
The North American leaders will be discussing immigration and the recapture of the son of drug cartel kingpin “El Chapo.” But also high on the agenda: a dispute over energy.
Zimbabwe has had to import maize, a staple food, for the past several years. Experts blame droughts and erratic rainfall resulting from climate change. The government is now urging farmers to grow more small grains like sorghum and millet, which are more drought-resistant.
Ana Montes, who worked for the US defense department, was simultaneously spying for Cuban authorities. She's now been released after her 25-year prison sentence. Jim Popkin, who's written about her, shares her story with The World's host Marco Werman.
Over the weekend, Orthodox Christians around the globe celebrated Christmas. In Russia and Ukraine, the holiday took place during a time of war between the two countries.
Brazilian authorities say they will punish the thousands supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s who stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace over the weekend.
Honey bees, wild and native bees face threats from parasites, pesticides and habitat loss. Shorter winters, more extreme weather and more habitat destruction won’t help.
Countries across Europe are experiencing unseasonably warm weather this January, causing a headache for ski resorts and broader concern for what it might mean for the year ahead.
Karim Younis spent a total of 40 years in Israeli prisons. The World's Carol Hills spoke with Khaled Elgindy, a Palestinian and Israeli affairs expert at the Middle East Institute, about the implications of his release.
Due to soaring electricity costs, bakers in France can’t afford to turn on their ovens to bake bread. They’re demanding help from the government and threatening the unthinkable — to turn off their ovens.
Funeral services were held for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Thursday. Massimo Faggioli, a professor of historical theology at Villanova University, discusses the late pontiff's legacy with The World's host Carol Hills.
If a cat contracts feline infectious peritonitis, a chronic wasting disease, it is almost always fatal. A pharmaceutical company, however, developed a recipe for a cure. Global drug manufacturers are now marketing off-label versions of the medication — and cat owners say it works.
Russia is the world’s largest fertilizer producer, but fewer Russian agricultural products are entering the global market due to the war in Ukraine. It’s changing how farmers and fertilizer suppliers are thinking about agriculture.
Women who work for nongovernmental organizations in Afghanistan are in shock after the group announced a ban on female employees.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into 21st-century US policy on the Arctic, with a focus on the language used to shape these policies.
CRRIFS, a wildlife rescue in San Carlos Nuevo Guaymas, Mexico, helps protect sea turtles and other animals facing threats from human activity. Many volunteers make their work possible.
Taiwan's president announced last week that mandatory military service for young people will increase from four months to a full year. There is substantial popular support for the move because of a rising threat from China, though among young people themselves, it’s more complicated.
The Ukrainian community in Philadelphia is the second-largest in the United States. As members of the diaspora celebrated the holidays with a special Ukrainian version of “The Nutcracker,” they reflected on a year of worry and solidarity.
With Donald Trump's 2020 loss, Brazil became more isolated than ever. But the president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, says he wants to change that.
The Canaries begin just 60 miles off the coast of Western Sahara, in the Atlantic Ocean. That relatively short distance makes them attractive to those fleeing hardship at home. But the crossing is treacherous.
Pelé won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century.
Erika Robb Larkins, director of Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University, visited a training school for private security guards. She spoke to Gemma Ware, the host of The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Across Spain's Barcelona province children are getting to school in organized convoys of bikes, dubbed "bicibus," or bicycle-bus. As with traditional bus lines, each bicibus route has stops where other cycling students can join along the way. Parents, teachers and other volunteer adults ride, too, to ensure the kids’ safety.
In winter, light in the northern latitudes is dim and very blue compared to summer light. Reindeer eyes have evolved to be better suited at seeing in this unique environment.
Mary Robinson was the first female President of Ireland, and has been chair of "The Elders," a group founded by Nelson Mandela. She spoke with The World's host Marco Werman about connecting with young activists on environmental justice.
Male faculty members have stood up in solidarity with Afghan women following a Taliban decree banning them from attending universities. Obaidullah Baheer, a lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, discusses the situation with The World's host Marco Werman.
The Marina Project in Benin could lead to a better understanding of the transatlantic slave trade. But critics say that the commodification of heritage may debase the experiences of painful pasts.
Paul Ninson joins The World's host Marco Werman to discuss the opening of the new photography library that he created, called the Dikan Center in Accra, Ghana, to showcase work by Africans and African Americans.
Theresa and Scott Cianciolo founded Agape Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that works with children and adults with developmental disabilities in Ukraine. After they stopped traveling to Ukraine due to the war, they raised money to create a home for refugees and children with disabilities in Vermont.
Since the time of former President Fidel Castro’s revolution, women have been banned from competitive boxing. Starting this month, though, women are now allowed to work and compete as professional boxers, ushering in a new era for the sport.
Morocco’s Atlas Lions have a lot to celebrate at this year's World Cup in Qatar. They became both the first Arab and the first African team to reach the semifinals, inspiring Arab unity around the world.
After more than 120 minutes of play, Argentina beat France in penalty kicks in an extraordinary match on Sunday at this year’s World Cup in Doha, Qatar.
The Indian government passed stricter laws after the gang rape and death of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh in 2012. But violence against women in the country is still on the rise. Natasha Narwal, a Delhi-based feminist and activist, tells The World why.
Udi is a language with its own ancient alphabet and an unlikely grammatical feature that some linguists believe is unique. Now, researchers in Georgia are trying to preserve the language from possible extinction.
The electric scooter revolution in the "City of Lights" may be about to go bust just as it takes off.
Abrham Meareg, an Ethiopian researcher, said his father was killed last year after being targeted on social media. The lawsuit comes amid growing criticism that Facebook and other social media giants are not doing enough to stop hate speech and inciting language from spreading online across Africa.
Researchers have discovered a new owl species called the Príncipe scops-owl, known for its unique call and genetic make-up. They found it on Príncipe, a small island off the western coast of central Africa — and they say it's critically endangered.
Across the United Kingdom this month, up to 100,000 nurses are predicted to take part in a series of strikes over pay and conditions. The British government has so far refused to budge, which nurses warn ultimately puts patients at risk.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, take a deep dive this week into reasons why a government might choose to outsource its violence.
The three-day US-Africa Leaders Summit kicked off on Tuesday, with 49 African leaders gathered in Washington, DC. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told The World that the United States is "committed to engaging with the continent," even as Beijing and Moscow expand their engagement there.
Ukraine didn't qualify for this year’s World Cup, and Russia was banned from the games. But soccer goes on in both countries, amid a war that could decide the future of the sport in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
A Libyan man suspected of involvement in the making of the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, is now in US custody. To discuss the view from inside Libya, The World's host Marco Werman spoke with Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in Paris.
Three Afghan locals have been killed, with others injured — including two foreigners — after gunmen attacked a Kabul hotel frequented by Chinese nationals on Monday.
About 40 members of a special, all-women Afghan platoon that worked alongside the US military barely made it out of Afghanistan last year. Now, they want to put their training to use even though they remain in a legal limbo. But that hasn’t stopped them learning English and getting an education.
Human rights groups warn that a Turkish invasion could trigger a new exodus of refugees, and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis in northern Syria.
WNBA star Brittney Griner has been freed in a prisoner swap with Russian arms-dealer Viktor Bout. To hear more about how this deal got made, we hear from Hugh Dugan, a former State Department hostage negotiator who has worked on deals to bring back Americans from abroad.
In China, protests have declined after the loosening of some COVID-19 restrictions. Some Taiwanese continue to support what they call the "A4 revolution," or "white paper protests," in China.
Protesters in the southern Syrian city of Suweida stormed a government building and torched pictures of President Bashar al-Assad over the weekend. They called for overthrowing the president, whom they blame for the worsening economic conditions.
Former NASA astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, who now directs the 100 Year Starship Project, talks about the power of the "big, blue marble" image of planet Earth, taken 50 years ago.
The World's host Marco Werman spoke with the network's Washington, DC, bureau chief Abderrahim Foukara, about new evidence found and presented to the court.
Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group's Iran Project, talked with The World’s host Marco Werman about how sustained protests in Iran may be impacting the power of the so-called "morality police."
An unemployed H-1B visa holder has to find a new employer, or “sponsor,” within 60 days, or leave the country. Thousands of Bay Area tech and biotech workers have surged onto sites like LinkedIn, frantically looking for friendly faces, like 36-year-old Vidhi Agrawal of San Francisco.
Sudan’s ruling generals and the main pro-democracy group have signed a framework deal to establish a new, civilian-led transitional government to guide the country to elections and offer a path forward in the wake of Sudan's stalled transition to democracy following last year's coup.
Russian hackers have been trying to break into Naftogaz systems for years, so when Mandiant offered to deploy hunt teams for free to see if anything was lurking in their networks, the company executives couldn’t believe their luck.
In 1922, a Ukrainian choir sang the song “Shchedryk” at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The tune became a Christmas sensation known as “Carol of the Bells.” This Sunday, a Ukrainian choir will once again perform the famous song at Carnegie Hall.
With a 2024 completion deadline that was voted on in March, the future treaty aims to reduce plastics pollution on a global scale. Organizers plan to mitigate the costs and effects of plastic production as a whole and engage workers’ concerns within the industry.
When Kherson was liberated from Russian occupation earlier this month, the song “Oi u luzi chervona kalyna,” or “Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow,” could be heard throughout the Ukrainian city as a song of resistance.
This week's Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive into the function of insults, name-calling and other types of undiplomatic language.
Happy Science is among the most enduring and far-reaching “new religious movement,” as they’re called in Japan.
Residents in Uganda's oil-rich Hoima district say their land is up for grabs as an ambitious oil pipeline project plans to run more than 800 miles from the western part of the country all the way to neighboring Tanzania.
Daredevil surfers hurtle down the face of waves as tall as 6-story apartment buildings.
The Argentine soccer star won countless trophies for Barcelona, but failed to earn his homeland the biggest prize of all. This may be his last chance.
Uganda is seeking to develop and refine its oil in partnership with the French energy company Total, and a state-owned Chinese corporation.
The Brazilian soccer team's jersey colors have been co-opted by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. But some people say that the reelection of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in late October could change that.
The Madrid-based nongovernmental organization Safeguard Defenders says that China has an extended police network in dozens of countries around the world, with the goal of coercing criminal suspects to return home to China. Beijing doesn't deny they exist, but says they are legitimate and used for legal purposes.
A forest in the city of Izium in northeast Ukraine is home to one of the largest mass graves discovered since the Russian invasion.
Qatar kicked off the World Cup with its opening ceremony on Sunday. The country has spent more than $200 billion in preparation, building seven new stadiums.
Singer and songwriter Jorge Drexler, from Uruguay, took home the most trophies at the Latin Grammy Awards ceremony in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Thursday.
Russia’s relationship with North Korea goes back decades. Now, there are reports that Russia is getting military assistance from North Korea amid the war in Ukraine. Yet, both governments deny it.
Some climate change impact is now unavoidable. At the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh this month, developing nations have been pushing for more funding, canceled debt and changes to the global financial system to help them address the funding gaps they face in dealing with climate change.
Back in the ‘70s, Argelita's village school in northeast Spain closed down because there just were not enough children. But now, after 47 years, children finally have a place to learn in town.
The United Nations projects that next year, India will surpass China and claim the title of the world’s most populous country. India’s population growth has actually been slowing down for many decades, thanks to comprehensive family planning — but the burden mostly falls on women.
Europeans have been battling the Velutina hornet for about 15 years. Spanish beekeepers have sent out a mayday for help, but so far they’ve been left to defend their hives on their own.
Europeans have been battling the Velutina hornet for about 15 years. Spanish beekeepers have sent out a mayday for help, but so far they’ve been left to defend their hives on their own.
In the past 10 years, the global demand for lithium has skyrocketed, and the production increase of electric vehicles is expected to raise this demand by at least 300% in the next 10 years. Chile meets about a third of the lithium demands, and plans to boost its production in the next few years.
In the past 10 years, the global demand for lithium has skyrocketed, and the production increase of electric vehicles is expected to raise this demand by at least 300% in the next 10 years. Chile meets about a third of the lithium demands, and plans to boost its production in the next few years.
Scholars explain what affirmative action is — and isn’t — as well as what its effects are, and why, among others, the military has supported it for decades.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the power and politics of collective memory when it comes to partitions. "If states told ghost stories, they would tell them of past partitions," Kelsey D. Atherton writes.
Brazil's President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is taking his concerns for the environment to the international stage. As a special guest at COP27 this week in Egypt, he said he’s going to tackle deforestation.
Brazil's President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is taking his concerns for the environment to the international stage. As a special guest at COP27 this week in Egypt, he said he’s going to tackle deforestation.
It only took just over a decade for the world to add 1 billion more people. To break down what this growth means for societies around the globe, The World's host Carol Hills speaks to demographer and author Jennifer Sciubba.
It only took just over a decade for the world to add 1 billion more people. To break down what this growth means for societies around the globe, The World's host Carol Hills speaks to demographer and author Jennifer Sciubba.
As full inquiries into clerical abuse swept Europe, Spain remained an outlier. Now, two separate investigations are underway.
As full inquiries into clerical abuse swept Europe, Spain remained an outlier. Now, two separate investigations are underway.
It’s been two months since Ukrainian forces took back this city, but life is far from back to normal. The World visited Izium earlier this month and saw firsthand Russia’s trail of devastation, mines and one of the biggest mass graves discovered since the war began.
It’s been two months since Ukrainian forces took back this city, but life is far from back to normal. The World visited Izium earlier this month and saw firsthand Russia’s trail of devastation, mines and one of the biggest mass graves discovered since the war began.
A family in one of the hardest-hit regions of Pakistan's Sindh province were forced to live on the roof of a school for two months while they waited for floodwaters that destroyed their home to recede. They are directly seeing the damaging climate change effects being discussed by world leaders at the COP27 summit.
A family in one of the hardest-hit regions of Pakistan's Sindh province were forced to live on the roof of a school for two months while they waited for floodwaters that destroyed their home to recede. They are directly seeing the damaging climate change effects being discussed by world leaders at the COP27 summit.
At least six people died and dozens of others were wounded in an attack on a popular thoroughfare in Istanbul on Sunday. Police detained a Syrian woman who they say has confessed to planting a bomb.
As Russian dissidents flee to Poland, this moment has created an unexpected opportunity for historians in both countries to work together to uncover the more disturbing aspects of their shared history.
As Russian dissidents flee to Poland, this moment has created an unexpected opportunity for historians in both countries to work together to uncover the more disturbing aspects of their shared history.
Victor Wembanyama, 18, is a once-in-a-generation phenomenon. Known as “Wemby,” he’s a 7-foot, 4-inch tall athlete playing professionally in his native country of France. Next year, he’s entering the NBA draft.
Victor Wembanyama, 18, is a once-in-a-generation phenomenon. Known as “Wemby,” he’s a 7-foot, 4-inch tall athlete playing professionally in his native country of France. Next year, he’s entering the NBA draft.
The closure of Oaxaca’s trash dump in October is wreaking havoc on the environment. As world leaders gather for the COP27 climate conference, Oaxaca’s trash problems indicate just how complicated climate protection can be at the local level.
The closure of Oaxaca’s trash dump in October is wreaking havoc on the environment. As world leaders gather for the COP27 climate conference, Oaxaca’s trash problems indicate just how complicated climate protection can be at the local level.
As a young man, Purnendu Goswami was a proud Hindu nationalist who went to extremes to promote his beliefs. Now 49, he describes himself as a humanist who practices “radical love."
As a young man, Purnendu Goswami was a proud Hindu nationalist who went to extremes to promote his beliefs. Now 49, he describes himself as a humanist who practices “radical love."
Victoria Obidina was among a group of women who were taken as prisoners by the Russian military from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol in May. Obidina was held captive for six months before being released last month as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine.
Victoria Obidina was among a group of women who were taken as prisoners by the Russian military from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol in May. Obidina was held captive for six months before being released last month as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine.
This week's Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive into what might happen should Ireland and Northern Ireland fall under one government again.
As the Russian economy starts to slow down because of Western sanctions, migrant workers from Central Asia, who often work low-wage jobs in Russia, have been some of the first to feel the war’s economic impact.
As the Russian economy starts to slow down because of Western sanctions, migrant workers from Central Asia, who often work low-wage jobs in Russia, have been some of the first to feel the war’s economic impact.
Journalist Mikhail Fishman, an anchor at the independent Russian news outlet TV Rain, joined The World's host Marco Werman to talk about how the Russian government is placing "a big bet" on US midterm elections outcomes that will favor Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.
Journalist Mikhail Fishman, an anchor at the independent Russian news outlet TV Rain, joined The World's host Marco Werman to talk about how the Russian government is placing "a big bet" on US midterm elections outcomes that will favor Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.
That’s the big question coming up at the UN Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, and it’s controversial. It refers to the economic and physical costs that developing countries are facing from the impacts of climate change.
“This was an amazing discovery on so many levels,” said Peter Der Manuelian, an Egyptology professor at Harvard University and author of the book “Walking Among Pharaohs.”
“This was an amazing discovery on so many levels,” said Peter Der Manuelian, an Egyptology professor at Harvard University and author of the book “Walking Among Pharaohs.”
Miami progressives are trying to break the Republican grip on the state’s Latino voters by making cultural connections to Cubans in the US.
Miami progressives are trying to break the Republican grip on the state’s Latino voters by making cultural connections to Cubans in the US.
In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Democrat Beto O’Rourke have spent more than $9 million combined in purchasing Spanish-language media advertisements to appeal to voters.
In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Democrat Beto O’Rourke have spent more than $9 million combined in purchasing Spanish-language media advertisements to appeal to voters.
As hundreds of thousands of young men streamed into Central Asia to avoid the draft in Russia at the end of September, activists realized that many of the new arrivals were now jobless, homeless — and without legal papers.
As hundreds of thousands of young men streamed into Central Asia to avoid the draft in Russia at the end of September, activists realized that many of the new arrivals were now jobless, homeless — and without legal papers.
COP27 has kicked off in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Nearly 50 heads of state will take the stage in the first day of “high-level” international climate talks on Monday, with more to come in the following days.
A peace deal signed on Wednesday between Ethiopia's federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) brings hopes that the country's devastating civil war might finally come to an end.
A peace deal signed on Wednesday between Ethiopia's federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) brings hopes that the country's devastating civil war might finally come to an end.
On Oct. 10, Russia carried out a series of attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. One of the rockets landed on a children’s playground at the popular Shevchenko Park. No one was killed at the park but the attack shocked parents and caregivers.
More than 7 million Venezuelans have left their homeland since 2015 amid ongoing economic and political crises in their country. And with ineffective border security, criminal gangs are increasing their efforts to take advantage of the migrants.
With Benjamin Netanyahu set to return to power, reporter Noga Tarnopolsky discusses with The World's host Marco Werman what Israeli parliamentary election results will mean for the country.
A new British study out on Wednesday shows that psilocybin — the substance found in hallucinogenic mushrooms — can help treat people with severe depression. But science writer Dana Smith cautions that psychedelic mushrooms are “not going to be a cure-all.”
Just 10 days before the war began last February, Ukrainian officials launched a nationwide vaccination campaign to stop a rare polio outbreak in the country. But the war has made controlling the outbreak nearly impossible.
In Almaty's Green Bazaar, vendors sell a variety of foods that represent the culinary heritage of hundreds of thousands of Koreans who call Kazakhstan home.
The United States is not at war with Russia though it is supplying Ukraine with lots of weaponry. And Washington is wielding its economic might against Moscow. US sanctions cover a wide range of Russian industries: fossil fuels, banking, aviation — and even precious minerals, like diamonds.
Recent Russian attacks have damaged power grids and water systems in the capital, Kyiv, but families are returning home, and crews of electrical maintenance workers are being charged with bringing power back to the city.
Poet and author Javier Zamora recounts nearly every detail of his harrowing journey from El Salvador to the United States when he was 9 years old in a new memoir called "Solito."
Pastor Gábor Iványi is one of Hungary’s best-known religious leaders. He officiated over Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s wedding and baptized two of his children. Today, he is one of Orbán’s fiercest critics.
The Biden administration announced a plan that will automatically reject all Venezuelans seeking asylum at the US border with Mexico if they enter the country without authorization. The deal will only benefit a fraction of asylum-seekers.
This year's Pride in Taipei was a celebration of achievements and identities — but also a protest. Groups representing transgender people, sex workers and people living with HIV and AIDS all gave speeches calling for further social and political change.
This year's Pride in Taipei was a celebration of achievements and identities — but also a protest. Groups representing transgender people, sex workers and people living with HIV and AIDS all gave speeches calling for further social and political change.
Some 59,000 tons of unwanted clothing arrive in Chile each year from places like Europe, Asia and the United States. But because it is illegal to dump them in landfills, they often end up in places like the Atacama Desert in the north of the country, where they harm the environment.
Some 59,000 tons of unwanted clothing arrive in Chile each year from places like Europe, Asia and the United States. But because it is illegal to dump them in landfills, they often end up in places like the Atacama Desert in the north of the country, where they harm the environment.
Poland has taken in nearly 1.5 million Ukrainians since the war began. Local mayors say they’re now running out of money to support refugees. And the vast network of volunteers that turned up in the early months of the invasion say that they’re running out of energy, too.
Poland has taken in nearly 1.5 million Ukrainians since the war began. Local mayors say they’re now running out of money to support refugees. And the vast network of volunteers that turned up in the early months of the invasion say that they’re running out of energy, too.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin is obsessed with the war in Ukraine, to the exclusion of most other pursuits, Kremlinologist Mark Galeotti said. Galeotti tells The World’s Marco Werman Putin’s mindset has been shaped by the wars Russia has waged since Putin became president, especially the conflict in Chechnya.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin is obsessed with the war in Ukraine, to the exclusion of most other pursuits, Kremlinologist Mark Galeotti said. Galeotti tells The World’s Marco Werman Putin’s mindset has been shaped by the wars Russia has waged since Putin became president, especially the conflict in Chechnya.
Brazil has a new president-elect. Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat out incumbent Jair Bolsonaro for the presidency in one of the most highly contentious races in the country’s history.
Brazil has a new president-elect. Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat out incumbent Jair Bolsonaro for the presidency in one of the most highly contentious races in the country’s history.
The northern Indian hill towns — with their breathtaking views and lush cedar forests — became a favorite haunt of British high society. Reminders of that era still linger across the hill stations in the form of Gothic lodges, anglicized street names, churches — and ghosts.
The northern Indian hill towns — with their breathtaking views and lush cedar forests — became a favorite haunt of British high society. Reminders of that era still linger across the hill stations in the form of Gothic lodges, anglicized street names, churches — and ghosts.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wins Brazilian election in a tight run-off with 50.9% of the vote to Jair Bolsonaro's 49.1%.
A messianic sect holds sway with Japan’s ruling party. The murder of ex-premier Shinzo Abe is forcing the country to reckon with this shadowy alliance.
A messianic sect holds sway with Japan’s ruling party. The murder of ex-premier Shinzo Abe is forcing the country to reckon with this shadowy alliance.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is one of the most well-known opposition politicians in Russia. Like Alexei Navalny, and dozens of other opposition politicians in Russia, Kara-Murza is in prison. Right now, he is awaiting his day in court after being accused of high treason. He is one of hundreds of documented political prisoners in Russia.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is one of the most well-known opposition politicians in Russia. Like Alexei Navalny, and dozens of other opposition politicians in Russia, Kara-Murza is in prison. Right now, he is awaiting his day in court after being accused of high treason. He is one of hundreds of documented political prisoners in Russia.
Ethnic Russians have been living in Latvia for decades. But with public opinion turning sharply against Russia since the war in Ukraine began, some say they are increasingly worried about their place in Latvian society.
Ethnic Russians have been living in Latvia for decades. But with public opinion turning sharply against Russia since the war in Ukraine began, some say they are increasingly worried about their place in Latvian society.
Poland was quick to cut back on Russian energy imports. The government has signed contracts with Norway and the US to help make up for those cuts. But the energy crunch is really hitting Poland hard. Prices have shot up by as much as 700% since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Poland was quick to cut back on Russian energy imports. The government has signed contracts with Norway and the US to help make up for those cuts. But the energy crunch is really hitting Poland hard. Prices have shot up by as much as 700% since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
To save on energy this winter, European nations are trying to decide if it's time to get rid of daylight saving time. But if they make different decisions, it could make keeping track of time across the continent quite chaotic.
To save on energy this winter, European nations are trying to decide if it's time to get rid of daylight saving time. But if they make different decisions, it could make keeping track of time across the continent quite chaotic.
Evangelicals now make up a third of the population of Brazil. And their votes could be decisive in this weekend's tight presidential election. Michelle Bolsonaro, wife of the incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, is doing her part to get out the vote — especially among women.
Evangelicals now make up a third of the population of Brazil. And their votes could be decisive in this weekend's tight presidential election. Michelle Bolsonaro, wife of the incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, is doing her part to get out the vote — especially among women.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the myth of "coup contagion."
Ukraine’s military has been gaining ground against Russian forces, winning back territory for weeks now. But the Russian military appears to have adjusted its strategy. It’s been hitting Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure with missiles and drones. That presents a challenge for Ukraine’s air defense system.
Ukraine’s military has been gaining ground against Russian forces, winning back territory for weeks now. But the Russian military appears to have adjusted its strategy. It’s been hitting Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure with missiles and drones. That presents a challenge for Ukraine’s air defense system.
The GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting spoke to nearly a dozen people in Massachusetts who say they were victims of forced labor, having to sneak down the back stairs to escape or call 911 for help. An ongoing GBH series on labor trafficking has found that those victims are often overlooked and their abusers go unpunished.
The GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting spoke to nearly a dozen people in Massachusetts who say they were victims of forced labor, having to sneak down the back stairs to escape or call 911 for help. An ongoing GBH series on labor trafficking has found that those victims are often overlooked and their abusers go unpunished.
Refugees from Western Sahara host a film festival while in exile to attract attention to their plight nearly 50 years after Morocco invaded their land, forcing hundreds of thousands of them to flee.
Refugees from Western Sahara host a film festival while in exile to attract attention to their plight nearly 50 years after Morocco invaded their land, forcing hundreds of thousands of them to flee.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — or DACA — provides protection from deportation and work athorization to some undocumented people brought to the US as kids. It’s a lifeline that’s fading away.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — or DACA — provides protection from deportation and work athorization to some undocumented people brought to the US as kids. It’s a lifeline that’s fading away.
The Cayuga Nation has ordered a series of demolitions and evictions over the last few years in western New York, which has stirred controversy within the community.
The Cayuga Nation has ordered a series of demolitions and evictions over the last few years in western New York, which has stirred controversy within the community.
Choosing where to go to college is a big decision for anyone. Visiting college campuses can make that decision easier, but not everyone gets that opportunity. One TV show is trying to change that.
What will it take for Ukraine to defend against the ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and explosive drones raining down on the country? The question is not so much what as how many.
Sunak is the nation's former Treasury chief and will be Britain’s first leader of color. He faces the task of stabilizing his party and country at a time of economic and political turbulence.
The refrain, “after the Party Congress,” has been heard constantly in China. It refers to the idea that once this week’s official National Congress of the Communist Party meeting wraps up on Friday, maybe things will get back to normal after a series of strict pandemic lockdowns.
The refrain, “after the Party Congress,” has been heard constantly in China. It refers to the idea that once this week’s official National Congress of the Communist Party meeting wraps up on Friday, maybe things will get back to normal after a series of strict pandemic lockdowns.
Parts of the Atacama Desert have turned into a blooming carpet of flowers — an incredible sight that only happens a couple of times every decade. To protect the phenomenon, Chile's president has announced the creation of a new national park.
Parts of the Atacama Desert have turned into a blooming carpet of flowers — an incredible sight that only happens a couple of times every decade. To protect the phenomenon, Chile's president has announced the creation of a new national park.
Shehan Karunatilaka, author of "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida," is winner of the 2022 Booker Prize. Karunatilaka talked with The World's host Marco Werman about the ways in which Sri Lanka's grim history of civil war — along with a bit of "gallows humor" — shaped the ideas in his award-winning novel.
Shehan Karunatilaka, author of "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida," is winner of the 2022 Booker Prize. Karunatilaka talked with The World's host Marco Werman about the ways in which Sri Lanka's grim history of civil war — along with a bit of "gallows humor" — shaped the ideas in his award-winning novel.
Leaders of African nations have long demanded reforms to the UN Security Council, arguing that they deserve more representation on the council, given the large percentage of council issues that involve Africa.
Leaders of African nations have long demanded reforms to the UN Security Council, arguing that they deserve more representation on the council, given the large percentage of council issues that involve Africa.
Catalonia’s regional leader defends an uphill negotiation with Spain over an independence referendum as his long-time separatist allies walk away.
Catalonia’s regional leader defends an uphill negotiation with Spain over an independence referendum as his long-time separatist allies walk away.
Liz Truss resigns as British prime minister — only six weeks after taking office — after her policies created economic turmoil and a rebellion from within her own party.
Latvia, like the rest of European Union countries, has closed its border to virtually all Russians — even those fleeing conscription into the army. These days, it’s desperate Ukrainians who are crossing into Latvia from Russia, most notably young men fearing they might be drafted, too.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive into the beliefs of citizens of Germany and the Netherlands on the use of US nuclear weapons — especially as informed by partisan belief.
Latvia, like the rest of European Union countries, has closed its border to virtually all Russians — even those fleeing conscription into the army. These days, it’s desperate Ukrainians who are crossing into Latvia from Russia, most notably young men fearing they might be drafted, too.
There are two kinds of mass graves in Ukraine, the ones left after Russian executions, and the ones dug by local people to prevent disease or to protect the bodies. Now, there are efforts underway to document the graves and create digital records of the bodies, in order to identify them later.
The Kremlin never planned for the war in Ukraine to last for many months. And over time, many of Russia’s stated goals have not materialized. That’s why there’s been a lot of turnover among top Russian military commanders. Now, Moscow has appointed a seasoned general to lead its war effort in Ukraine.
The Kremlin never planned for the war in Ukraine to last for many months. And over time, many of Russia’s stated goals have not materialized. That’s why there’s been a lot of turnover among top Russian military commanders. Now, Moscow has appointed a seasoned general to lead its war effort in Ukraine.
Climate change and increased cattle farming have created intense pressure on Kyrgyzstan’s walnut forest — the largest one on Earth. A new app helps herders to better monitor and manage their pastures in an effort to protect the walnut forests.
Climate change and increased cattle farming have created intense pressure on Kyrgyzstan’s walnut forest — the largest one on Earth. A new app helps herders to better monitor and manage their pastures in an effort to protect the walnut forests.
The town Przemyśl which lies on Poland's border with Ukraine, has seen a revolving door of migrants fleeing the war in Ukraine, and then returning home. At the train station in Przemyśl, many Ukrainians are facing difficult decisions about returning home amid a brutal war.
The town Przemyśl which lies on Poland's border with Ukraine, has seen a revolving door of migrants fleeing the war in Ukraine, and then returning home. At the train station in Przemyśl, many Ukrainians are facing difficult decisions about returning home amid a brutal war.
On Oct. 13, Taiwan finally reopened to tourists after 2 1/2 years of relative isolation. The country had focused border restrictions to keep COVID-19 cases and death rates low. Travelers and tourism business owners say they’re thankful that their main source of revenue is returning.
On Oct. 13, Taiwan finally reopened to tourists after 2 1/2 years of relative isolation. The country had focused border restrictions to keep COVID-19 cases and death rates low. Travelers and tourism business owners say they’re thankful that their main source of revenue is returning.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been accused of using anti-Semitic tropes to promote his vision of Hungarian nationalism. Some members of the Jewish community say this makes them uncomfortable, but Jewish leaders have been slow to speak out about it.
In the runoff election in Brazil, there are two very different visions for the future of public education. Incumbent Jair Bolsonaro has steadily been making cuts. While his challenger, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, vows to expand it. That’s what he did when he ran the country in the 2000s, and in northeastern Brazil, voters feel their very livelihoods depend on his return.
In the runoff election in Brazil, there are two very different visions for the future of public education. Incumbent Jair Bolsonaro has steadily been making cuts. While his challenger, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, vows to expand it. That’s what he did when he ran the country in the 2000s, and in northeastern Brazil, voters feel their very livelihoods depend on his return.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been accused of using anti-Semitic tropes to promote his vision of Hungarian nationalism. Some members of the Jewish community say this makes them uncomfortable, but Jewish leaders have been slow to speak out about it.
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said this week that Russia has been deploying Iranian-made drones in his country, targeting civilian areas. The drones are relatively small and can fly at low altitude, evading Ukrainian radars, Zelenskiy said.
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said this week that Russia has been deploying Iranian-made drones in his country, targeting civilian areas. The drones are relatively small and can fly at low altitude, evading Ukrainian radars, Zelenskiy said.
The fire erupted as nationwide anti-government protests triggered by the death of a young woman in the custody of the country's morality police entered a fifth week. Tensions have escalated to a point unseen since the mass demonstrations that accompanied the country's 2009 Green Movement protests.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has promised to continue facilitating mining and agro industry in Brazil’s portion of the Amazon if he wins another four-year term. But destruction of the Amazon affects the air quality and jeopardizes the water supply in neighboring countries.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has promised to continue facilitating mining and agro industry in Brazil’s portion of the Amazon if he wins another four-year term. But destruction of the Amazon affects the air quality and jeopardizes the water supply in neighboring countries.
Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, portrays himself as a defender of Christianity, a religion which he says is under threat as a result of immigration, globalism and liberalism. Orbán’s critics question the sincerity of the Hungarian leader’s faith and wonder if his pro-Christian rhetoric is simply all about staying in power.
Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, portrays himself as a defender of Christianity, a religion which he says is under threat as a result of immigration, globalism and liberalism. Orbán’s critics question the sincerity of the Hungarian leader’s faith and wonder if his pro-Christian rhetoric is simply all about staying in power.
The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iran has ignited the most powerful protests the country has seen in years. "Click Here" spoke to one protester who discussed the dangers of using social media and technology while participating in street demonstrations.
The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iran has ignited the most powerful protests the country has seen in years. "Click Here" spoke to one protester who discussed the dangers of using social media and technology while participating in street demonstrations.
A recent study concludes that 1 in 6 US tree species are at risk of extinction, largely due to pests and disease.
A recent study concludes that 1 in 6 US tree species are at risk of extinction, largely due to pests and disease.
Latvia's government is capping the heat in health facilities and other buildings to about 65 degrees Fahrenheit in an attempt to keep some heat flowing during the cold winter months while lessening its dependency on Russian energy.
Latvia's government is capping the heat in health facilities and other buildings to about 65 degrees Fahrenheit in an attempt to keep some heat flowing during the cold winter months while lessening its dependency on Russian energy.
Fifty years after his death, some organizers have insisted on revisiting the artist Pablo Picasso in a new light, with exhibits and conversations focused on his problematic relationship with women.
Yiddish once thrived among European Jews. Now, it's considered an endangered language. But over the past few years, there’s been growing interest in the language, including in China, where students at one of the country’s most prestigious universities are now learning it.
Underlying the festivities are increased concerns about Taiwan’s relationship with China as well as changes in its own national identity.
Russian businessman and opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky recently released a new book, "The Russia Conundrum: How the West Fell for Putin’s Power Gambit — and How to Fix It." He spoke with The World's host Marco Werman about Russia, President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin promoted Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to army general this month. Kadyrov is a long-time ally of Putin and is known for his inflammatory remarks and abysmal human rights record. He has also described Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a “holy war.”
The English city of Leicester is host to one of the most ethnically diverse populations in the UK, including a sizable South Asian community. But in recent months, the city’s reputation as a successful model of integration has taken a blow as simmering tensions between people from Hindu and Muslim backgrounds have spilled over into street battles.
Repair Together, a volunteer group in Ukraine, helps clean up homes and villages that have been damaged by the war, while dancing to music.
Most Mediterranean mussels are grown in the Ebro Delta, in Spain’s northeast, and often enjoyed by consumers nearby. But this year’s Mediterranean harvest was nearly wiped out by unusually warm seas, forcing restaurant owners to import their mussels from other countries.
More than 10,000 Russians are fleeing to neighboring Georgia every day to escape being drafted into the war in Ukraine. The influx is exacerbating tensions going back to Soviet times.
In Ukraine, coping with war and dealing with trauma has become a daily challenge. Millions of Ukrainians have been impacted by Russia’s invasion. Many are on the front lines. Others have been displaced. And everyone is processing different levels of pain, both physical and mental. Some people are trying to help people cope with the trauma of war.
Kids as young as 4 compete to build castells, or human towers, a centuries-old tradition tied to Catalan identity.
Authors examine in “Reshoring may create new job opportunities, although primarily for workers whose skills are complementary to robots,” how automation shifts the material realities and, in turn, the political preferences, of workers.
World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway withdrew from an online chess match against 19-year-old American player Hans Niemann at the $350,000 Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, Missouri.
World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway withdrew from an online chess match against 19-year-old American player Hans Niemann at the $350,000 Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, Missouri.
That’s because the number of college-educated workers is shrinking and baby boomers are retiring more quickly than previous estimates suggested.
That’s because the number of college-educated workers is shrinking and baby boomers are retiring more quickly than previous estimates suggested.
In the somber ballad, musician Shervin Hajipour sings of why Iranians are rising up in protest: “For dancing in the streets," he intones. “For my sister, for your sister, for our sisters.”
In the somber ballad, musician Shervin Hajipour sings of why Iranians are rising up in protest: “For dancing in the streets," he intones. “For my sister, for your sister, for our sisters.”
Loons are having fewer and smaller chicks, which are less likely to survive. Most surprisingly, young, non-breeding adults are also dramatically in decline — but no one knows why. Volunteers from Canada and the United States are on a quest for answers.
Loons are having fewer and smaller chicks, which are less likely to survive. Most surprisingly, young, non-breeding adults are also dramatically in decline — but no one knows why. Volunteers from Canada and the United States are on a quest for answers.
Even some of the Russian leader's closest advisers don't know what Vladimir Putin is thinking, according to former US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft. He has spent plenty of time in the room with Putin himself.
Even some of the Russian leader's closest advisers don't know what Vladimir Putin is thinking, according to former US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft. He has spent plenty of time in the room with Putin himself.
Residents from Colombia and Venezuela turned out in large numbers last week to welcome the reopening of their shared border to vehicles. Two commercial trucks, covered with the respective flags of each country, crossed the border point, marking the end of seven years of closure.
As US-China relations continue to deteriorate over China’s messaging on Taiwan, the Biden administration recently announced it won’t remove tariffs on Chinese goods put in place by former President Donald Trump. The news is a blow to businesses that do substantial business with China.
Residents from Colombia and Venezuela turned out in large numbers last week to welcome the reopening of their shared border to vehicles. Two commercial trucks, covered with the respective flags of each country, crossed the border point, marking the end of seven years of closure.
As US-China relations continue to deteriorate over China’s messaging on Taiwan, the Biden administration recently announced it won’t remove tariffs on Chinese goods put in place by former President Donald Trump. The news is a blow to businesses that do substantial business with China.
Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was expected to cruise to a huge victory on Sunday. But the final result showed President Jair Bolsonaro just a handful of points behind. This means weeks of intense campaigning ahead of runoffs at the end of the month.
Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was expected to cruise to a huge victory on Sunday. But the final result showed President Jair Bolsonaro just a handful of points behind. This means weeks of intense campaigning ahead of runoffs at the end of the month.
An investigation is underway after 125 people were killed during a stampede after police fired tear gas at a soccer match in East Java’s Malang city in Indonesia.
Brazil is still the largest Catholic country in the world, but Protestant evangelicals are a fast-growing segment of the population. And they’re making their presence felt politically.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen speaks to The World's host Marco Werman about a renewed call by himself and other Senate Democrats for a full inquiry into the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh earlier this year.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen speaks to The World's host Marco Werman about a renewed call by himself and other Senate Democrats for a full inquiry into the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh earlier this year.
Two presidents are battling for power in Sunday’s elections. Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is hoping to unseat current far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
Two presidents are battling for power in Sunday’s elections. Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is hoping to unseat current far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
Brazilians will vote in presidential elections on Sunday. They will also vote for a host of other government officials. This year, more Indigenous people, women and Black candidates are running for office than ever before.
Brazilians will vote in presidential elections on Sunday. They will also vote for a host of other government officials. This year, more Indigenous people, women and Black candidates are running for office than ever before.
As they watched the Taliban take over Kabul, a group of Bay Area universities got together to bring Afghan scholars to the US by funding their residencies.
The mapping app Gershad, launched in 2016, allows people in Iran — primarily women — to mark the location of the country's morality police so that others can avoid them. Human rights activist and app co-founder Firuzeh Mahmoudi joined The World's host Marco Werman to talk about the app amid current protests.
The mapping app Gershad, launched in 2016, allows people in Iran — primarily women — to mark the location of the country's morality police so that others can avoid them. Human rights activist and app co-founder Firuzeh Mahmoudi joined The World's host Marco Werman to talk about the app amid current protests.
China started investing in new electric vehicles years ago. This year, about 25% of new cars sold there are electric. They're gaining in popularity, especially among the younger generation.
China started investing in new electric vehicles years ago. This year, about 25% of new cars sold there are electric. They're gaining in popularity, especially among the younger generation.
Robert Malley, the US special envoy for Iran, joined The World's host Marco Werman from Washington to discuss how the Biden administration views the current protests and what this could all mean for efforts to secure a nuclear deal with Iran.
Robert Malley, the US special envoy for Iran, joined The World's host Marco Werman from Washington to discuss how the Biden administration views the current protests and what this could all mean for efforts to secure a nuclear deal with Iran.
The five-day Durga Puja festival brings the city of Kolkata, India, to a standstill as throngs of people visit elaborate temples to the Goddess Durga that spring up everywhere.
The five-day Durga Puja festival brings the city of Kolkata, India, to a standstill as throngs of people visit elaborate temples to the Goddess Durga that spring up everywhere.
Banks in Lebanon have partially reopened this week after the government had ordered them to be shut down. The closures were prompted by a spate of bank heists conducted by people whose savings have been stuck in banking system.
Banks in Lebanon have partially reopened this week after the government had ordered them to be shut down. The closures were prompted by a spate of bank heists conducted by people whose savings have been stuck in banking system.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the prosecutor’s office in Rome, Italy. From 1975 to 1991, this office was able to use gatekeeping to shield politicians from corruption charges. When those protections ended, the stable coalition system was overturned.
"Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands," a graphic novel by Kate Beaton, from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, tells the story of leaving home and joining thousands of others to work in the oil sands of Alberta, Canada. Beaton joined The World's host Marco Werman to talk about her experience.
"Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands," a graphic novel by Kate Beaton, from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, tells the story of leaving home and joining thousands of others to work in the oil sands of Alberta, Canada. Beaton joined The World's host Marco Werman to talk about her experience.
In Spain, some 20,000 unclaimed suitcases now sit in airport warehouses. Envera, a nonprofit group, has found a way to give the contents of this lost luggage a new home.
In Spain, some 20,000 unclaimed suitcases now sit in airport warehouses. Envera, a nonprofit group, has found a way to give the contents of this lost luggage a new home.
Dina Temple-Raston of the "Click Here" podcast spoke with Niko Vorobyov, the Russian author of Dopeworld and Kim Grauer, director of research at Chainalysis and an expert in cryptocurrency economics and crime, about Hydra, its closure in April and who or what is likely to replace it.
Dina Temple-Raston of the "Click Here" podcast spoke with Niko Vorobyov, the Russian author of Dopeworld and Kim Grauer, director of research at Chainalysis and an expert in cryptocurrency economics and crime, about Hydra, its closure in April and who or what is likely to replace it.
A NASA spacecraft has successfully made impact with an asteroid in an unprecedented practice run to thwart potential incoming threats to Earth.
The film, “Vuta n’Kuvute,” or “Tug of War” in English, revisits the colonial and revolutionary past of the island of Zanzibar.
Kenyan sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala won the gold medal for the 100-meter sprint at the Commonwealth Games in August — the first time for his country in 60 years. Now, he's hoping to inspire more youth to pursue the sport.
Kenyan sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala won the gold medal for the 100-meter sprint at the Commonwealth Games in August — the first time for his country in 60 years. Now, he's hoping to inspire more youth to pursue the sport.
The Brothers of Italy party has won the most votes in Italy’s national elections as vote counting comes to an end. The win will make Giorgia Meloni the country's first woman premier and give the nation its first far-right-led government since World War II.
This panel explores the state of research, potential treatments and proposals to address the broad societal impact of this novel, and sometimes, debilitating condition.
Spain’s socialist government recently passed a new law greatly expanding the rights and recognition of victims during the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco and the years that followed.
Spain’s socialist government recently passed a new law greatly expanding the rights and recognition of victims during the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco and the years that followed.
Demand for royal memorabilia has skyrocketed since the queen’s death in the United Kingdom.
Demand for royal memorabilia has skyrocketed since the queen’s death in the United Kingdom.
The Roma are Hungary’s largest ethnic minority, making up close to 10% of the population. Radio Dikh, a new radio station, aims to change perceptions of the Roma community in Hungary, where they have faced decades of stigma and discrimination.
The Roma are Hungary’s largest ethnic minority, making up close to 10% of the population. Radio Dikh, a new radio station, aims to change perceptions of the Roma community in Hungary, where they have faced decades of stigma and discrimination.
In late 2019, nearly half a million foreign students in China — mostly from Africa and other parts of Asia — were studying at Chinese universities. Then the pandemic struck, disrupting in-person studies. Nearly 2 1/2 years later, many are still prevented from returning to China.
In late 2019, nearly half a million foreign students in China — mostly from Africa and other parts of Asia — were studying at Chinese universities. Then the pandemic struck, disrupting in-person studies. Nearly 2 1/2 years later, many are still prevented from returning to China.
Bogotá's Care School for Men aims to battle centuries of living in a culture that teaches men to focus on breadwinning instead of caregiving.
Bogotá's Care School for Men aims to battle centuries of living in a culture that teaches men to focus on breadwinning instead of caregiving.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into all the ways in which diplomacy is a kind of performance.
Experts say the port will be a new milestone for shipping trade between China and Latin America. But many people in the town of Chancay, where the port will be located, are not happy about it and say their lives will be changed forever.
Taras Topolia is the lead singer of the Antytila band in Ukraine. When the war started, Topolia immediately joined Ukraine's military and served on the front lines, as did some of the other band members. At the same time, Topolia continues to advocate for Ukraine through his music.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease specialist, joined The World's host Marco Werman to assess the current status of the COVID-19 pandemic and reflect briefly on five decades of service in public health.
When Russia first invaded Ukraine, the capital, Kyiv, was under threat. One of Russia’s goals was to force regime change in the heart of the country. That didn’t happen. But the residents of Kyiv are still processing the early days of the war, trying to begin to get back to something like normal daily life.
The queen’s funeral plans were decades in the making as part of what was codenamed “Operation London Bridge.”
This week's General Debate at UN headquarters in New York will draw a room filled with big personalities, protagonists and politics.
What can renters and landlords can do to fortify homes against a changing climate while transitioning to cleaner energy?
This past week, girls in the province of Paktia in eastern Afghanistan went to the streets to protest. The Taliban had reopened their schools but ordered them shut again. Girls’ education in Afghanistan has become a sensitive topic since the Taliban came to power last year. They have closed down nearly all secondary schools for girls in the country.
Somalis find themselves caught between twin crises: the worst drought to hit the region in more than 40 years, and ongoing insecurity caused by terrorism.
The "Click Here" podcast spoke to The World about their extended interview with a high-ranking member of the pickup cyberforce called the IT Army of Ukraine.
For five nights, over two weekends, Garth Brooks is playing in Ireland’s largest stadium, and for the first time in 25 years. And the 400,000 or so fans who snagged tickets seem determined to make the most of it.
The United Nations has said more than 700 children have died in malnourishment centers in Somalia this year. Several parts of the country could experience famine from October to December due to extreme drought.
La Vie, a plant-based food startup in France, is on a mission to start a vegan bacon revolution and has tested products that taste almost like the real thing. Pork lobbyists are not too happy about it.
Darren Byler, a Uyghur scholar, joined The World's host Carol Hills from Vancouver to discuss the book, "The Backstreets: A Novel from Xinjiang."
Darren Byler, a Uyghur scholar, joined The World's host Carol Hills from Vancouver to discuss the book, "The Backstreets: A Novel from Xinjiang."
Inclusive dance is an emerging art form that’s moving people all over the world. Dancers in wheelchairs, on crutches, or have no obvious challenges at all while professionals mix with amateurs.
Inclusive dance is an emerging art form that’s moving people all over the world. Dancers in wheelchairs, on crutches, or have no obvious challenges at all while professionals mix with amateurs.
This week, the announcement of the resignation of a powerful cleric in Iraq sparked deadly clashes in the capital, Baghdad. On Monday, Moqtada al-Sadr said he is stepping away from politics. In response, his supporters stormed the Green Zone.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that a lot of students are also going to class far from home, or online because of the war.
Azadeh Moaveni, with the International Crisis Group, speaks with The World’s host Carol Hills about Shamima Begum, a British woman who was a teenager when she traveled to Syria in 2015. Moaveni says new information about Begum being trafficked by a Canadian intelligence agent could have serious implications for Canada.
This summer, China experienced its longest heat wave on record — more than 70 consecutive days of scorching temperatures. Residents have found some relief in caves, bomb shelters and air-conditioned supermarkets, but one expert says this summer should be a “wake-up call” to do more to mitigate climate change.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Ivanovych Sadovyi speaks to The World’s Daniel Ofman about how the city is preparing for a long winter ahead. Top concerns are housing for internally displaced people, sufficient fuel for heat and medical supplies.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Ivanovych Sadovyi speaks to The World’s Daniel Ofman about how the city is preparing for a long winter ahead. Top concerns are housing for internally displaced people, sufficient fuel for heat and medical supplies.
Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter from Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into how rebel groups survive when natural disasters strike.
“We have reason to suspect that a lot of the information about us, at least the information we know, is incorrect," said Peter Knudson, who is one of 50 cosigners on an application filed to South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission last week to clarify their origins.
“We have reason to suspect that a lot of the information about us, at least the information we know, is incorrect," said Peter Knudson, who is one of 50 cosigners on an application filed to South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission last week to clarify their origins.
Ukraine is partnering with an advertising company to produce an innovative nation branding campaign during a war. The campaign could have influence beyond how Ukraine and Russia conduct this war.
Despite six months of grueling war with Russia, several acts from Ukraine were represented at the world’s largest arts festival, held early in Scotland. For the performers, it was a bittersweet experience.
Despite six months of grueling war with Russia, several acts from Ukraine were represented at the world’s largest arts festival, held early in Scotland. For the performers, it was a bittersweet experience.
Extreme heat and drought have left water in short supply in Monterrey, Mexico, but not everyone is feeling the pinch. Some poor neighborhoods seem to be facing far more restrictions on water usage than wealthier ones.
Extreme heat and drought have left water in short supply in Monterrey, Mexico, but not everyone is feeling the pinch. Some poor neighborhoods seem to be facing far more restrictions on water usage than wealthier ones.
Rising sea levels, erosion and storms in Louisiana's bayou country have flooded entire communities. For some French speakers, Hurricane Ida was the last straw — and many are now moving away.
Rising sea levels, erosion and storms in Louisiana's bayou country have flooded entire communities. For some French speakers, Hurricane Ida was the last straw — and many are now moving away.
International aid starts to reach flood-stricken Pakistan as heavier-than-usual monsoon rains leave more than a thousand people dead.
The Soviet Union was a latecomer to industrial whaling, but it slaughtered whales by the thousands once it started and radically under-reported its toll to international monitors.
After chief anchor Lisa LaFlamme was sacked, tons of speculation followed. Was it a budgetary decision? A personality clash with new management? Or maybe it had something to do with LaFlamme’s gray hair.
After chief anchor Lisa LaFlamme was sacked, tons of speculation followed. Was it a budgetary decision? A personality clash with new management? Or maybe it had something to do with LaFlamme’s gray hair.
The Gulf country of Qatar is facing criticism from human rights advocates after it arrested and deported a group of migrant workers who had protested months of overdue pay. This comes roughly three months before the nation is set to host the World Cup.
The Gulf country of Qatar is facing criticism from human rights advocates after it arrested and deported a group of migrant workers who had protested months of overdue pay. This comes roughly three months before the nation is set to host the World Cup.
For years, people have been questioning the concept of laicité — France's strict form of secularism — and how it plays into religious freedom. In this special hour of The World airing on Saturday, Paris-based reporter Rebecca Rosman takes a trip across France where she speaks to Catholics, Jews, Muslims and atheists about their right to believe, or not to believe.
Viktor Pylypenko and Yekaterina Pryimak have served as medics on the front lines in Ukraine against Russian aggression for the last six months. Both said that maintaining their mental health after six straight months of combat is difficult.
Viktor Pylypenko and Yekaterina Pryimak have served as medics on the front lines in Ukraine against Russian aggression for the last six months. Both said that maintaining their mental health after six straight months of combat is difficult.
Even since 18-year-old Angella Okutoyi's Wimbeldon win last month, she's been getting a lot of attention at home from aspiring tennis players. Her ascension in the sport comes after a long road of hard work, perseverance and determination against the odds.
Ned Price, the US State Department’s top spokesperson, told The World's host Carol Hills that the United States is prepared to support Ukraine for as long as necessary to defeat Russian aggression and to also defend themselves against any future aggression.
Ned Price, the US State Department’s top spokesperson, told The World's host Carol Hills that the United States is prepared to support Ukraine for as long as necessary to defeat Russian aggression and to also defend themselves against any future aggression.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter, takes a deep dive this week into the ways in which memorialization in South Korea is an act of present politics.
An estimated 40,000 Jews fled fighting in the western part of the Soviet Union during World War II and sought refuge in Central Asia. Today, only about 1,500 Jews still live in Kyrgyzstan, but the small community continues to thrive.
An estimated 40,000 Jews fled fighting in the western part of the Soviet Union during World War II and sought refuge in Central Asia. Today, only about 1,500 Jews still live in Kyrgyzstan, but the small community continues to thrive.
Mandopop megastar Jay Chou has released his first album in six years, with his new song, “The Greatest Works of Art," becoming an instant hit. The music video follows an antique piano on a journey to inspire famous artists of the past.
Mandopop megastar Jay Chou has released his first album in six years, with his new song, “The Greatest Works of Art," becoming an instant hit. The music video follows an antique piano on a journey to inspire famous artists of the past.
The Brazilian town of Santa Bárbara d’Oeste is known for one thing above all — its annual Confederate festival. Descendants of thousands of people who emigrated to Brazil from the US South after they lost the Civil War celebrate their American heritage. Typically, the Confederate flag stands out. But recently, the City Council voted to ban the flag because of its racist symbolism.
The president-elect, who has served as deputy president for the past 10 years, has been elected at a time when Kenya's flailing, debt-laden economy has left a lot of people struggling to make ends meet.
The charges followed a speech Khan gave in Islamabad on Saturday in which he vowed to sue police officers and a female judge and alleged that a close aide had been tortured after his arrest.
Since Brittney Griner was arrested, detained, and later sentenced in Moscow, her supporters have been advocating for the Biden administration to do anything possible to secure her release. The US and Russian officials have been in talks about a potential prisoner swap. The person that has come up most frequently as the man who could be released in exchange for Griner is Viktor Bout.
Bison once roamed the United Kingdom freely, but like many native animals, agriculture and human development killed them all off. This month, for the first time in 6,000 years, three wild bison were released into a forest near Kent.
Every August, the neighborhood celebrates the Festa Major de Gràcia, or Gràcia Street Festival. The almost-weeklong event running through Sunday, features a contest for the best-decorated street, with residents working hand in hand for months to produce the most impressive ornaments, often employing recycled materials.
For much of the pandemic, West African countries have lacked the vaccines needed to protect their populations against COVID-19. Now, supply in the region has finally caught up with demand for the vaccine. Still, too few people are vaccinated.
For much of the pandemic, West African countries have lacked the vaccines needed to protect their populations against COVID-19. Now, supply in the region has finally caught up with demand for the vaccine. Still, too few people are vaccinated.
Several American-based online learning platforms have made their coursework free to Ukrainians whose education has been upended by the war in their country. Students, as well as universities, are embracing the new offerings.
The New York-based duo makes music about a wide variety of themes but often come back to songs about Peruvian shamanism.
The New York-based duo makes music about a wide variety of themes but often come back to songs about Peruvian shamanism.
Sri Lankan families who have never had to worry about putting food on the table are now struggling. Even those with a financial cushion are seeing their lives being upended.
Sri Lankan families who have never had to worry about putting food on the table are now struggling. Even those with a financial cushion are seeing their lives being upended.
While countries around the world have begun congratulating the president-elect, within Kenya, the results remain controversial and disputed.
While countries around the world have begun congratulating the president-elect, within Kenya, the results remain controversial and disputed.
An arms control policy expert says that a military video put out by North Korea in March may have been faked to cover up an unsuccessful ballistic missile launch. His team deconstructs the images to try to verify them.
An arms control policy expert says that a military video put out by North Korea in March may have been faked to cover up an unsuccessful ballistic missile launch. His team deconstructs the images to try to verify them.
A group of young female skateboarders in Bolivia are using their attire to break stereotypes across society. Spanish colonizers introduced polleras to the country centuries ago, and they became a symbol of the Quechua and Aymara ethnic groups of South America.
A group of young female skateboarders in Bolivia are using their attire to break stereotypes across society. Spanish colonizers introduced polleras to the country centuries ago, and they became a symbol of the Quechua and Aymara ethnic groups of South America.
Monday marks a year since the Taliban seized the Afghan capital Kabul, a rapid takeover that triggered a hasty escape of the nation's Western-backed leaders, sent the economy into a tailspin and fundamentally transformed the country.
A million Brazilians have signed a letter in "defense of democracy" in anticipation of turmoil surrounding the upcoming presidential election in October. President Jair Bolsonaro has been questioning whether the upcoming election, in which he is running for a second term, will be fair. Critics say he is laying the groundwork to challenge the results.
A million Brazilians have signed a letter in "defense of democracy" in anticipation of turmoil surrounding the upcoming presidential election in October. President Jair Bolsonaro has been questioning whether the upcoming election, in which he is running for a second term, will be fair. Critics say he is laying the groundwork to challenge the results.
This summer, Turkish inflation reached levels not seen since the 1990s, and nowhere is it more clear than the rental market. Tenants are seeing their rents double, or even triple, in just one year.
This summer, Turkish inflation reached levels not seen since the 1990s, and nowhere is it more clear than the rental market. Tenants are seeing their rents double, or even triple, in just one year.
A recent UNICEF assessment in Sri Lanka found that many people are skipping meals or eating less to get by. Rising food prices and cooking gas shortages have spurred a Sri Lankan nonprofit to provide hot meals to those in need.
Since the war in Ukraine started, there’s been a wave of interest in Ukrainian history, culture and writing. That means publishers are scrambling and Ukrainian literary translators are working in overdrive.
A recent UNICEF assessment in Sri Lanka found that many people are skipping meals or eating less to get by. Rising food prices and cooking gas shortages have spurred a Sri Lankan nonprofit to provide hot meals to those in need.
Since the war in Ukraine started, there’s been a wave of interest in Ukrainian history, culture and writing. That means publishers are scrambling and Ukrainian literary translators are working in overdrive.
Sri Lanka imports at least 80% of its drugs and medical supplies, and the economic crisis has left it with inadequate foreign reserves to pay for them.
Sri Lanka imports at least 80% of its drugs and medical supplies, and the economic crisis has left it with inadequate foreign reserves to pay for them.
A recent wave of attacks against police has put Colombia’s security forces on edge. The government has blamed most of the recent police killings on the Gulf Clan, a drug-trafficking group that runs extortion rackets and exports cocaine to the US.
A recent wave of attacks against police has put Colombia’s security forces on edge. The government has blamed most of the recent police killings on the Gulf Clan, a drug-trafficking group that runs extortion rackets and exports cocaine to the US.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into what factors may lead an army to fracture instead of launching a coup.
Voters say they hope for a peaceful transition of power after previous elections were marred by violence — often along ethnic lines. This time, voter turnout is low, but those casting ballots are focused more on issues than ethnic affiliation.
As the US finds itself embroiled in another war, though not with troops, we are reairing our series, "How Wars End," which first ran in 2008.
As the US finds itself embroiled in another war, though not with troops, we are reairing our series, "How Wars End," which first ran in 2008.
The French Alps region is getting hit hard by drought, most likely exacerbated by climate change. And that's putting the entire economy there in serious jeopardy, because where there's no water, there are no tourists.
US Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman has just arrived in the capital Nairobi ahead of the country's heated presidential elections. She gave her first press conference over the weekend. While Whitman is more known for leading Fortune 500 companies than diplomacy, she says she will leverage her experience in this new role.
Ahead of Kenya's presidential election on Tuesday, Afropop stars Sauti Sol are using their music to encourage young Kenyans to vote. “A lot of the youth in Kenya feel like their voice doesn't really count,” said band member Bien-Aimè Alusa.
Over three days of fighting, 44 Palestinians were killed, including 15 children and four women, and 311 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Temple-mosque disputes have been flooding Indian courts in recent years. The current Gyanvapi mosque dispute stokes fear that violence could once again erupt between Hindus and Muslims over claims to the contested site.
Saint Sophia Cathedral was built under the reign of Grand Prince Yaroslav, whose father, Volodymyr, converted the region to Christianity.
A double agent who operated for the CIA and the Dutch security service against the Stasi tells his story for the first time.
In Moscow on Thursday, WNBA star Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison on drug charges. Griner was detained at the airport in Moscow in February, after security found vape cartridges with cannabis oil in her luggage. Last month, Griner pleaded guilty to possessing the drugs, but said she packed them by mistake.
It is the first time a large carnivore is being moved from one continent to another and reintroduced into the wild.
Bike shops in Sri Lanka’s largest city have reported higher sales — with the largest domestic bike manufacturer seeing a 300% increase in demand.
Sightings of the native magnolia flower had not been recorded since 1925. Expedition leader Eladio Fernandez said the search was like "an act of faith."
Sightings of the native magnolia flower had not been recorded since 1925. Expedition leader Eladio Fernandez said the search was like "an act of faith."
President Joe Biden has announced that the US has killed al-Qaeda’s top leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan. Zawahiri was on the US' most-wanted list and had a $25 million bounty on his head.
President Joe Biden has announced that the US has killed al-Qaeda’s top leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan. Zawahiri was on the US' most-wanted list and had a $25 million bounty on his head.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into how structural factors preserve leadership changes after civil war that put women in positions of political power in sub-Saharan Africa.
In a few months, the MareNostrum 4 will be replaced by the 5. It will be able to compute in one hour what the 4 needed an entire year to complete.
In a few months, the MareNostrum 4 will be replaced by the 5. It will be able to compute in one hour what the 4 needed an entire year to complete.
Using a keyboard, a saxophone, a bass guitar and percussion, Eblis Alvarez is recreating the classical salsa sound developed by Latino immigrants in New York in the 1970s and giving it somewhat of a psychedelic twist.
Using a keyboard, a saxophone, a bass guitar and percussion, Eblis Alvarez is recreating the classical salsa sound developed by Latino immigrants in New York in the 1970s and giving it somewhat of a psychedelic twist.
The song “PAF.no,” one of the biggest hits in Norway this year, features a chorus in Arabic that has everyone singing along — and also discussing what it means to be Norwegian.
The song “PAF.no,” one of the biggest hits in Norway this year, features a chorus in Arabic that has everyone singing along — and also discussing what it means to be Norwegian.
Mexico’s Centla wetlands are part of an ecological reserve in the southeastern Tabasco state that has been impacted by deforestation, cattle grazing and man-made fires. In recent decades, conservationists with Casa del Agua have promoted reforestation and community education to save the wetlands.
This past week, the Zimbabwean government launched a gold coin priced at about $1,800, hoping that when people buy it, it will reduce the number of bills in circulation and eventually stabilize the Zim dollar. But some are dubious about the plan.
Damares Alves has led a sometimes silent, sometimes vocal campaign to push policy priorities favored by evangelical conservatives.
The first ship carrying Ukrainian grain set out from the port of Odesa under a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey that is expected to release large stores of Ukrainian crops to foreign markets and ease a growing food crisis.
Open Arms, a sea rescue nongovernmental organization, has a new vessel with a hospital and room for over 1,000 people, but says Spain is using bureaucracy to block its departure.
Indigenous communities in Brazil have long had a difficult relationship with Christian missionaries. Experts say it's not about religion, but mineral riches.
Indigenous communities in Brazil have long had a difficult relationship with Christian missionaries. Experts say it's not about religion, but mineral riches.
As evangelicals grow in number and political influence in Brazil, members of other religious traditions are feeling uneasy. Some have even been attacked. Evangelical activists have targeted many Afro Brazilian religious centers and destroyed icons, and have even attacked clergy members.
As evangelicals grow in number and political influence in Brazil, members of other religious traditions are feeling uneasy. Some have even been attacked. Evangelical activists have targeted many Afro Brazilian religious centers and destroyed icons, and have even attacked clergy members.
Protestant evangelicals from Brazil and the United States have a long history of close relations. Today, Capitol Ministries is a powerful player in that relationship. And in Brazil, the group has strong ties with President Jair Bolsonaro's government.
Protestant evangelicals from Brazil and the United States have a long history of close relations. Today, Capitol Ministries is a powerful player in that relationship. And in Brazil, the group has strong ties with President Jair Bolsonaro's government.
Protestant evangelicals are a fast-growing segment of the country. Politically, President Jair Bolsonaro is their candidate.
Protestant evangelicals are a fast-growing segment of the country. Politically, President Jair Bolsonaro is their candidate.
When Julie Sedivy was four, her family fled their native Czechoslovakia and settled in Canada. Years later, a return trip to the Czech Republic made her realize she could quickly recover her mother tongue through memories. Sedivy recounts her linguistic journey in a new book called "Memory Speaks."
When Julie Sedivy was four, her family fled their native Czechoslovakia and settled in Canada. Years later, a return trip to the Czech Republic made her realize she could quickly recover her mother tongue through memories. Sedivy recounts her linguistic journey in a new book called "Memory Speaks."
A comment by Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, sparked a strong public response from the Chinese government. But due to legal and practical reasons, no country could take over the moon anytime soon.
Iraqi protesters aligned with Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political movement stormed the heavily militarized Green Zone and Iraqi Parliament building on Wednesday. The World's Marco Werman spoke with Hamzeh Hadad, a visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, about the protesters' demands and the political gridlock plaguing Iraq.
In the Turkish city of Istanbul, police have continued a stepped-up campaign of random ID checks in immigrant neighborhoods. This week, officials acknowledged that 19,000 people have been deported over the past eight months. It’s not clear how many of them are Syrians.
Sri Lanka, which imports its fuel, currently lacks enough dollars to buy adequate supplies of gasoline, diesel, cooking gas and kerosene. That's impacting the country's fishing industry, with people running out of fuel for their boats.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the politics of wildlife management. The political right tends to campaign on the visceral impact of wolf attacks, but tangible improvements to rural life could offer a counter argument.
Rosalía, who hails from a sleepy town near Barcelona, Spain, is often confused for a Latina artist. But her music does adopt some styles from Latin America. Her latest song, “Despechá” hasn't been officially released yet, but a clip from the song has already been viewed millions of times.
Rosalía, who hails from a sleepy town near Barcelona, Spain, is often confused for a Latina artist. But her music does adopt some styles from Latin America. Her latest song, “Despechá” hasn't been officially released yet, but a clip from the song has already been viewed millions of times.
Soccer may be China’s national sport, but enthusiasm for frisbee — a quintessential American sport — is growing in China. Ultimate Frisbee is one of the few no-contact, mixed-gender sports in the country. And that may be one of the reasons that women, especially, are now flocking to it.
Soccer may be China’s national sport, but enthusiasm for frisbee — a quintessential American sport — is growing in China. Ultimate Frisbee is one of the few no-contact, mixed-gender sports in the country. And that may be one of the reasons that women, especially, are now flocking to it.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act has been in effect one month. Human rights lawyer Rayhan Asat said that it's the first time that a US law imposes demanding standards on importers to disprove the use of forced labor in their goods coming into the US.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act has been in effect one month. Human rights lawyer Rayhan Asat said that it's the first time that a US law imposes demanding standards on importers to disprove the use of forced labor in their goods coming into the US.
Thousands of passengers are arriving at their destinations without their luggage and little idea if they will ever see it again.
Thousands of passengers are arriving at their destinations without their luggage and little idea if they will ever see it again.
Traffic has begun trickling back into the streets of Colombo, Sri Lanka. But the economic crisis and fuel shortages have many people still waiting in long queues to refuel their vehicles. Some people have even been stuck in line for days.
Traffic has begun trickling back into the streets of Colombo, Sri Lanka. But the economic crisis and fuel shortages have many people still waiting in long queues to refuel their vehicles. Some people have even been stuck in line for days.
Myanmar's government confirmed Monday it had carried out its first executions in nearly 50 years, hanging a former lawmaker, a democracy activist and two other political prisoners.
Many children who illegally entered the US are protected under Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But those who came legally on their parents’ work visas have no such protections. When they turn 21, even though they have lived in the US nearly all their lives, they are subject to deportation.
Thousands of Indigenous people gathered in Alberta province on Monday to hear the long-awaited apology from the pope to Indigenous communities for generations of abuse and cultural suppression in Canada's residential schools. But some say more has to be done. Crystal Fraser, an assistant professor at the University of Alberta, spoke to The World's host Marco Werman.
Canada's Indigenous community is set to hear a long-awaited apology from Pope Francis for generations of abuse and cultural suppression at Catholic residential schools across the country. The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse were rampant in the state-funded Christian schools that operated from the 19th century to the 1970s.
Jackie Chan, known for his action movies, martial arts and acrobatic fighting style, is producing a new film called “Home Operation.” This one though, is not set in Tokyo or LA, but in the leveled and destroyed town of Al-Hajar al-Aswad on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria. The news has outraged some Syrians who say their destroyed homes are not props for foreign film productions.
The former coal mining town and current Arctic research hub has developed a reputation for superb wines and Nordic fine dining.
A café manager in Tokyo has developed a particular method to help writers struggling with procrastination complete their work.
Evacuees in the Spanish village of Sant Fruitós de Bages, about an hour outside of Barcelona, have testified to the destruction. "In 15 or 20 minutes, the fire consumed everything," a resident said.
Sri Lankan protesters ousted the previous president last week, and now, they’re taking aim at the new president, calling for him to resign, too.
Canada's Alberta province has seen a 50% loss in its bee colonies this year alone. Experts fear this could have a major impact on crops and honey production. Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council, spoke to The World's host Marco Werman about the situation.
Polar bears are “plastic,” meaning they’re designed to be responsive to shifting living conditions. But as sea ice continues to melt, the clock is ticking on how long they can survive.
Australia and Sri Lanka are usually bitter rivals on the pitch during cricket matches. But Sri Lankans are welcoming the Australian team and its fans as a much-needed distraction from their country's recent political and economic turmoil.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the links between wildlife conservation and voting trends. "Wolf attacks, and campaigning on them, is a durable and recurring feature of the far-right in Germany," Kelsey D. Atheron writes.
A plague of rabbits is rampaging through one of Europe’s most bountiful farming regions. Farmers in northeast Spain say that, without help, they’ll lose most of this year’s harvests.
Crystal Kwok is the director of "Blurring the Color Line," a new documentary about her family’s experience in Augusta, Georgia, and the relationships between Chinese Americans and Black people during the Jim Crow era.
Russian schools are revamping their curriculum and encouraging students to join a new patriotic youth movement in an attempt to steer them away from Western influence. To discuss how propaganda works, The World’s host Marco Werman speaks with Nina Khrushcheva, professor of international affairs at The New School in New York and great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
A brown seaweed called sargassum is washing up on Cancun beaches, threatening the region’s efforts to recover its tourism. Local resident Omar Vazquez Sanchez got the idea to transform the seaweed into “sargablocks,” what he calls a small solution to a big problem.
Since its February release, the song “Pasoori,” which translates to “difficulty” or “conflict” in Punjabi, has racked up more than 250 million views on YouTube and on Instagram.
About to release her second album, Renata Flores is using rap and the Inca language to challenge discrimination.
If approved, it would be the first time that a country legalizes a drug as addictive and harmful as coca.
The hot weather in the UK was expected to be so severe this week that train operators warned it could warp the rails and some schools set up wading pools to help children cool off. French forecasters also warned of possible record temperatures as swirling hot winds complicated firefighting efforts in the country's southwest.
President Joe Biden arrived in Saudi Arabia on Friday for the first time since he took office. He met with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Biden said in the past that he would make the kingdom “the pariah that it is.” But as gas prices have skyrocketed, he has changed his rhetoric. Now, experts question what the US will get out of this controversial visit.
Due to depleted money reserves and uncertainty on when Russia's war in Ukraine may end, zoo staffers at Zoo XII Months say they’re in worse shape than ever before. The animals remain distressed and, with virtually no visitors, the privately owned zoo isn’t making money.
Young Mexican citizens who return to Mexico — either voluntarily or through deportation — often find it difficult to continue their studies. Some give up, while others have to redo years of coursework just to get back to where they left off in the United States.
During President Joe Biden's trip to the Middle East, he's signed a joint declaration with Israel to counter Iran's nuclear program. The World's host Marco Werman speaks with Sina Azodi, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council in Washington, about what the move means.
In a huge reversal for Ghanaian President Akufo-Addo, the government is seeking a loan from the International Monetary Fund to tackle Ghana’s economic woes.
The top agenda item for Biden is regional security. Scheduled meetings with Israeli officials focus on strengthening the regional relationships that Israel has forged with some of its Muslim neighbors.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced people have ended up in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, near the Polish border, where prefabricated homes have become a fast and affordable way for the city to house refugees.
Dina Temple-Raston of the Click Here podcast spoke with Jorge Mora, Costa Rica’s former director of the Ministry of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunications (MICITT) and Mario Robles, the CEO and founder of White Jaguars, a Costa Rican cybersecurity company that helped the San José government respond to the ransomware attack on the country.
Lebanon’s old-growth cedar forests have been decimated by centuries of logging. Now, rising temperatures from climate change are set to take the rest.
After years of getting high prices for their fruit, Peruvian growers and exporters have seen the prices fall dramatically this season.
The newly released images from the James Webb Space Telescope show dancing galaxies and the death of a shooting star.
The sliding value of the euro could have a big impact on the US trade deficit, according to economist Eswar Prasad, a trade policy professor who spoke to The World's Marco Werman from Spain.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says he plans to establish an 18-mile “safe zone” in northern Syria to counter a US-backed Kurdish group. Erdoğan considers the People’s Protection Units, or the YPG, a threat to the security of his country.
Thwaites Glacier is considered the world's most important one — not just due to its size, but because of the massive amounts of ice that will melt due to global warming.
A year since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, Haiti has descended into further violence, and efforts to hold people accountable have proven to be fruitless. Widlore Merancourt, editor with news outlet AyiboPost in Port-au-Prince, discussed with The World's host Marco Werman what the anniversary means for Haitians.
Western countries have put extensive financial sanctions on Russia since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Some Russians at home and abroad have turned to cryptocurrency to keep themselves afloat.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the asymmetry of political belief when it comes to immigration: Voters against immigration tend to prioritize the issue over those in favor of it.
The COVID-19 pandemic created a shortfall in foreign workers when their visas weren't approved to return to the US. A decline in the number of Americans willing to take service sector jobs doubled the impact for small business owners.
Across Europe, walk-outs by crew members of various airlines have led to dozens of canceled or delayed flights.
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a public policy professor at George Mason University in Virginia, spoke with The World's host Carol Hills about the networks behind the illegal smuggling operations.
Language learning app Duolingo will offer a new Haitian Creole course for English speakers. It’s an opportunity to explore how Haitian Creole can sound and feel: sweet and romantic — but also rebellious.
In Lebanon, a pregnancy can only be terminated if three doctors agree that a woman's life is at risk. But this doesn't stop abortions from happening.
Trillions of dollars of financial assets are at risk of losses related to the climate. The Biden administration is moving to require public companies to disclose their climate risk to investors.
These trendy videos often feature African children who are prompted to parrot Chinese greetings and to act in inappropriate ways — for entertainment.
As Western leaders come together for a series of meetings, NATO says it plans to increase the number of its rapid reaction forces, and that allies will agree to deliver further military support to Ukraine when they convene on Tuesday in Spain.
The World's Carol Hills spoke with Natasha Hall, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, about Syria's drug trade and the country's descent into a narco state status.
After the ruling by the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, will more Americans travel for abortions? Inequalities created by this controversial decision will be revealed at border points.
The US Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, which will end constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place for nearly 50 years in the country. The move will now leave the question of abortion legality to individual states and is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half of US states.
Nearly half of the country’s small businesses closed when the war began. Now, many Ukrainians are returning home, and businesses are reopening. But they’re faced with serious financial challenges, among other concerns.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for talks in Ankara. The visit comes as Turkey seeks to repair ties with its regional rivals. Steven A. Cook at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington spoke with The World's host Carol Hills about the significance of the visit.
Accra has been hit with heavy rain and flash flooding in May and June, leaving many experts worried about the city’s capacity for climate resilience if trends continue.
What role does humor play in migration studies? This week's Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive into how joke-telling among Syrian refugees serves a vital social and political function.
Last week, Algeria severed trade and diplomatic ties with Spain, and has now threatened to cut off coveted gas sales — which have been protected under a two-decade-old friendship treaty.
For more than 30 years, the Chinese government had restricted most people to having only one child. Illegal and forced abortions were common, and it led to a massive drop in the country’s birth rate. A new policy that started last year allows couples to have up to three children now, but many people aren't interested.
Indigenous leaders have 10 demands including reducing gas prices, halting new mining and gas projects, providing funds for health care and education, and economic relief for millions of families in debt.
Belgium has returned the mortal remains of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba to Democratic Republic of Congo and his family. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, DR Congo's representative to the United Nations, discussed the move and its significance with The World's host Carol Hills.
Genshin Impact’s unexpected global success highlights a precarious balance: How Beijing goes about nurturing Big Tech while holding true to Chinese Communist Party ideology.
The students were able to escape Kabul because of the efforts of their school, the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, which was holding remote classes for the students living in Kabul during the coronavirus pandemic.
For years, people believed that climate change was to blame for the water shortage. But a recent study published in the Switzerland-based journal Water found that this shortage was not only due to the megadrought, but has also been caused by water misuse and management practices established under the country’s current legislation.
Former rebel Gustavo Petro narrowly defeated a real estate tycoon in a runoff election that underscored people’s disgust with Colombia's traditional politicians.
Weapons manufacturers in China are likely to benefit most from Russia’s losses, while US companies will also see a boom.
Ukrainian Cpl. Andrii Shadrin has been deployed to the Donbas region to fight Russian-backed separatists a half dozen times since 2014. The 26-year-old medic spoke to The World's host Carolyn Beeler from a makeshift base in the Luhansk region.
Rent prices in the western city of Lviv have nearly quadrupled in some cases since the war began, making it very difficult for displaced people fleeing war to find stable, affordable housing.
Social prescriptions are relatively common in the United Kingdom, especially to treat loneliness and isolation. When these conditions were exacerbated by the pandemic, the UK already had a strategy in place to help those who need it most, including the elderly.
The remains of two men missing in the western Amazon were found on Wednesday night. And two fishermen have been arrested in connection to the case. Indigenous and environmental leaders are mourning the deaths and asking questions about the government's role in protecting the Amazon.
A new Mozilla Foundation report states that election disinformation and hate speech are being spread through TikTok in the run up to elections in Kenya next month. After violence erupted during 2007 elections, the government created an agency to quell ethnic strife, and it warns against a repeat of the unrest.
Since February, hundreds of dolphins have been found dead off the coasts of Ukraine, Bulgaria and Turkey. Scientists have pointed to the war in Ukraine as a possible cause. Navy sonar systems used to locate other vessels create powerful sounds that may be disorienting the marine animals.
How did changes in US gun policy contribute to the rise in gun violence in Mexico? This week's Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, explores the reasons behind rising gun violence in Mexico.
For years, medical providers were taught that MS is very rare among Black Africans. But the presence of more neurologists in Zambia has upended previous thinking on the condition. Now, more people are getting diagnosed and treated for the disease.
Shepherds in Spain are now training to start “fire flocks" that graze at the edge of forests to prevent wildfires from spreading to populated areas.
The Cuban government recently lifted a decadesold ban on professional boxing imposed by then-President Fidel Castro in 1962. This year, the Cuban boxing team “Los Domadores” made a triumphant professional debut on May 20 in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
Hundreds of years ago, women in China weren’t allowed an education and spent their days locked in rooms, embroidering and making crafts. They came up with a new language that men couldn't understand — Nüshu — and wrote it onto handmade fans to communicate with each other. A filmmaker is now trying to raise awareness to preserve it before it is lost.
The Polish government says it is establishing a national medical database, following a directive from the EU Commission, promising to ensure the protection of people's privacy. But in a country with a near-total abortion ban, rights activists are not so convinced.
Oil sales to India, China and other Asian nations are boosting Russian export revenues at a time when Washington and its allies are trying to limit financial flows supporting Moscow's war effort in Ukraine.
History professor Charles Tshimanga-Kashama joined The World's host Marco Werman to discuss the historic visit and its implications for the future relations between the two countries.
Sex work is technically legal in India, but workers say they face stigma, harassment and violence — especially by the police. In recent years, sex worker collectives have formed to demand full decriminalization of sex work and recognition of their labor as worthy of protections and rights.
With the Celtics looking to bring home a banner under the guidance of the first-year head coach, the local Nigerian community is beaming at the success of one of their own.
Musicians with the Afghanistan National Institute of Music arrived in Portugal in December 2021 with high hopes of working again in their profession. But six months later, the future remains uncertain for them.
Last month, one railway network in Tokyo switched its entire network to electricity derived from renewable energy. It’s the first time a railway has become entirely net-carbon neutral.
Perhaps what is most interesting about #Swedengate is not what it tells us about Sweden, but what it tells us about ourselves.
Dinesh Joseph, who is a South African-born leadership and management trainer based in London, was recently on vacation and was one of the people forced to take the test before boarding his flight from the Canary Islands back to the UK. He described the experience to The World's host Marco Werman.
Some fear that Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira may have been kidnapped, disappeared or killed by members of criminal groups in the area.
An all-female orchestra was launched earlier this year as part of an effort to decrease gender disparities on Colombia’s classical music scene. It highlights the contributions of women and offers a place for younger generations to develop their talent.
This week's Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter, takes a deep dive into the dynamics and forces that led some to radicalization in Northern Ireland.
Dr. Atul Gawande, a renowned surgeon and global health leader at USAID, talks with The World’s host Marco Werman about plummeting resources in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic.
The African Development Bank Group has pledged $1.5 billion to tackle a massive fertilizer shortage across the continent, but smallholder farmers in Ghana worry that it may already be too late to avert a food crisis.
Deep in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, two Indigenous activists who secured a legal victory against gold mining in their native lands have won the Goldman Environmental Prize.
Can social media posts sustain Russia’s endangered dissident cultures? It's a struggle familiar from Soviet times.
At least 50 people, including children, have been killed, after gunmen opened fire on worshippers inside a Catholic church in southwestern Nigeria. No one has claimed responsibility yet, and local authorities say the attackers remain at large.
About a dozen dust storms have blown across Iraq this year with increased frequency and intensity. Experts say that it's due to climate change, drought and desertification.
Despite the decriminalization of abortion in Northern Ireland several years ago after presiding over some of the harshest legislation in the world, access is far from straightforward. And campaigners on both sides of the issue are rallying after last month’s US Supreme Court leak that's suggested the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Scientist Berat Haznedaroğlu is the director of Türkiye’s first initiative to turn algae into fuel for airplanes — but scaling up is a challenge.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, medical workers have been concerned about the possibility of Russia using chemical agents against civilians. That hasn’t happened yet (none on official record) but a Syrian American nongovernmental organization is helping Ukrainian medical workers prepare for the worst.
In Europe, wood pellets fire power plants and home furnaces in what’s become a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. It’s expanded because the European Union labels pellets as renewable. But environmentalists say that the label is misguided.
Mexico this week saw the strongest hurricane ever to hit the country in May. Agatha, a Category 2 hurricane, pummeled the country’s southern Pacific coast, killing at least 10 people. The Atlantic hurricane season, which started on Wednesday, is expected to be more active than usual.
In this week's Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, Kelsey D. Atherton takes a deep dive into insurgency and counterinsurgency in urban warfare.
As Shanghai begins to ease its two-month COVID-19 lockdown, writer and translator Xing Zhao says that the psychological impacts on residents are likely to linger for much longer.
Leaked government documents suggest a portion of the Achimota Forest Reserve could be rezoned for development, sparking a major outcry among residents and conservationists.
A series of recent drownings has brought to light the dangers of migrants trying to cross the Rio Grande as they attempt to flee to the United States.
Uyghurs in the diaspora are now going through the lists from leaked documents to try and identify their missing relatives. For many, it’s the first time they’ve been able to confirm what happened to them.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban wins significant concessions with the EU, allowing his country to continue purchasing Russian crude, despite the bloc saying that it plans to cut off 90% of Russian oil imports by the end of the year.
The potential reversal of Roe v. Wade should serve as a stark warning to the power the high courts hold to transform societal conditions.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that Title 42 would end May 23, it was the change that many immigrants at the US southern border had been hoping for. A recent court decision changed that.
Around the world, few treatments exist for the countless numbers of people who develop long COVID-19. In the UK, where more than a million people are estimated to be in this situation, a group of medical specialists and professional opera singers have been examining whether an age-old performance practice can help address one of the most common, debilitating symptoms: breathlessness.
In Portland, Maine, high schools are infusing North African flavors into school lunches as the district experiments with being more inclusive of its diverse student body.
China's zero-COVID-19 policy has shattered many people's trust in the government, especially in Shanghai. The monthslong lockdown has left people exhausted and plotting to escape. But getting out of the city isn't easy.
China's foreign minister has arrived in the Solomon Islands and plans to tour eight countries in an attempt to gain regional support.
This week in Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, Kelsey D. Atherton takes a deep dive into cruelty as a category for analyzing violence in conflicts.
The combination of a vast, geographically diverse space and such a young sport means that highlining has a lot of potential in Sonora, with room to grow. A group of highliners use the opportunity to practice their discipline that features balancing on lines strung dozens — even hundreds — of feet in the air.
There is concern that the Taliban may decide to ban female anchors altogether from the newsroom according to their interpretation of Islamic law.
A new exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art brings together about 400 pieces, including some objects by the luxury jewelry maker Cartier. It also tells the story of how the Cartier brothers were inspired by Islamic art.
Darren Byler, who specializes in China's treatment of Uyghurs at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, discussed insights from the leaked data with The World's host Marco Werman.
Many students who rely on the national free lunch program risk going hungry after Ghana’s school caterers went on strike.
Seagrass is on the decline in the world’s oceans, but the Indigenous Comcáac people of northern Mexico have managed to protect 96% of the eelgrass that grows in their waters.
Australia’s new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has flown to Tokyo for a summit, after being sworn in to office on Monday. He's meeting with the leaders of the US, Japan and India.
The Irish teen comedy ended its run on UK television this week. But it has special significance for women who grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, a period of conflict between Catholics and Protestants often known as the “troubles.”
China’s elderly population — who are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 — are not yet fully vaccinated.
The decision effectively reverses former President Donald Trump's move in January 2021 to withdraw hundreds of US troops operating in Somalia.
The Ukrainian Classical Ballet has been on a charity tour in Italy and Romania. Last weekend, the company was in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, for a performance of “Giselle.”
Under a strict COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai, some crew members on cargo ships have been stranded. Crew member Madeleine Wolczko has been documenting the harrowing ordeal.
Recent fighting between the Iraqi army and a local militia in heavily populated civilian areas has led to the displacement of an estimated 10,000 people.
Extremism expert Amarnath Amarasingam told The World's host Marco Werman that the shooter was deeply influenced by the white supremacist who killed 51 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
“I Will Marry When I Want,” the once-banned play, is finally getting its national debut after more than 30 years.
US President Joseph Biden pointed to a host of global challenges that make the ASEAN-US partnership “critical" at this time. But some experts who focus on Southeast Asia say the administration came up short at the summit.
Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is making a comeback with a campaign for democracy and unity against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.
The son of the Philippines brutal dictator Ferdinand Marcos has won election to the presidency, showing how wedded the country is to dynastic politics — and image manipulation.
Glenna decided join the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine, along with 20,000 other volunteer fighters from around the world. She does not have formal medical training but received some combat training upon her arrival in Ukraine.
The Taliban in Afghanistan have announced new rules requiring women to cover their faces when in public. The decree also says that women should only leave home when necessary. This is the latest in a series of restrictions imposed on women since the group came to power last summer.
Six years after ICE revealed a university was a sting operation, the students caught in the middle say they still haven’t fully recovered.
Students at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder are learning the law by providing free legal services to immigrants in the community. Some of them come from immigrant families themselves.
In a race to stop buying Russian natural gas, European countries are building new infrastructure that many fear could lead to a fossil-fuel “lock-in.” Germany houses six of the nearly dozen liquified natural gas import facilities across Europe.
India's abortion law is progressive, but it is also problematic, says Dr. Suchitra Dalvie, a practicing gynecologist in Mumbai, India. The co-founder and coordinator of the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership unpacked the law and recent amendments to it with The World's reporter Chhavi Sachdev.
Politics have never been that far away from the Eurovision Song Contest. Since its inception, the annual event has reflected the political culture and geopolitical realities of Europe.
This week in Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, writer Kelsey D. Atherton takes a deep dive into how the reactionary populist party Vox came to power in Andalucia riding a wave of misogyny — in the name of equality.
Heavy rains and a lull in public health prevention programs during the pandemic have allowed the deadly mosquito-borne disease to flourish.
Film director Robert Eggers spent $90 million to bring the Norse legend of Amleth to life on the screen, and he consulted a number of experts to do so.
Veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has been shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin. She was fatally shot in the head. Her producer, Palestinian journalist Ali Samoudi, was hospitalized in stable condition after being shot in the back.
Americans may recognize Thai food from Bangkok, but this couple opened a restaurant in rural New England to introduce people to a cuisine that's native to Thailand's Isaan region.
Distraught families are trying to raise awareness and seek justice after their children were killed while protesting proposed tax hikes in Colombia last year. Human rights groups say police killed dozens of youth from working-class areas.
South Asia is no stranger to extreme heat, with waves of varying intensities every year. But scientists say rapid climate change is making it worse.
Sinn Fein, which seeks union with Ireland, overtook the rival Democratic Unionist Party in last week’s Northern Ireland Assembly elections to become the first Irish nationalist party to top the voting in Northern Ireland’s history.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense granted special permission for the male musicians to leave the country, calculating that the world will be more motivated to protect Ukraine if it sees its culture as something precious and worth saving.
Delivery workers are pretty much the only people on Shanghai’s streets right now. They’ve kept the city running during lockdown, and millions of residents depend on them. But as gig workers, they have fewer labor protections, working long hours under difficult conditions.
Radio Haiti was shut down shortly after journalist Jean Dominique's assassination in 2000. Now, a trove of audio material has found new life with an archival collection at Duke University available in French, Haitian Creole and English.
Germany has now been able to slash its dependence on Russian oil since the war in Ukraine started in February. But Hungary and Slovakia — still heavily reliant on Russian oil — still oppose the deal.
Online campaigns in Vietnam are falsely maligning Ukrainians and discrediting the legitimacy of international organizations. It’s all at odds with the aims of the Vietnamese government.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into how acts of love and care take on a political dimension in life after violence.
In the small seaside town of Lubmin, the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia hits German soil. Germany canceled the gas project in February, but officials say they won’t be able to completely turn off the taps of Russian gas for years.
As warring parties in South Sudan call for a national truth and reconciliation process, displaced people still living in protected civilian camps say they continue to fear for their security.
Immigrants to the US, in all sorts of professions, face barriers to getting credentialed. And when it comes to caring for patients, there are good reasons for making sure doctors are qualified. But some health care experts say there’s also good reason to help foreign-trained medical professionals continue their careers in the US.
India has recorded its hottest March since 1901. The heat wave has caused acute power shortages affecting millions of people, as demand for electricity surges to record levels. Supplies of coal at many thermal power plants are running low, highlighting the country's need to diversify its energy sources.
A new study found that children and adolescents face increasing health risks as global temperatures rise.
The first group of civilians arrive in Ukrainian-held territory after being freed from a steel plant in Mariupol. Previous attempts to open safe corridors were unsuccessful.
A key witness at the international tribunal for the war in the former Yugoslavia — and a war criminal himself — testifies in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine triggered an outpouring of humanitarian and military aid. Protecting those supply chains is essential for delivering materiel to the front lines.
Over the last decade, Portugal has issued more than 10,000 golden visas to foreign investors in exchange for $6 billion in investments. But some say the visa program prices out locals and that Lisbon’s historic neighborhoods are "losing the magic."
Osman Salih cares for vulnerable wild animals from around the country and nurses them back to health.
In recent weeks, some Ukrainians in Warsaw have opened their own schools to let displaced children finish the school year in their own language and according to their own education system.
Since the start of the pandemic, housing costs in many areas have climbed at a pace well ahead of income growth, with the average price up more than 50% in two years. Canada’s local and federal governments are now pursuing measures to try and rein in prices.
Many of the 3 million Ukrainians who found safe harbor in Poland amid war at home now find themselves at a crossroads: Build a new life in Poland or return to Ukraine?
Human rights groups say they are deeply concerned about the well-being of the children who remain injured or unaccounted for following an ISIS attack on a prison in northeast Syria. Many of the children's home countries refuse to them them back.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into the ways in which human rights discourse is politics by other means.
Female Ukrainian refugees are suddenly tasked with shouldering both home and work responsibilities. Policy measures are needed to respond to women’s unique situations during this war.
Turkey’s ship watchers observe traffic in Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait to understand geopolitics — including the comings and goings of Russian ships amid war in Ukraine.
The letter Z has been used to glorify Russia's war in Ukraine. Now, countries like Lithuania and Latvia are moving to ban the letter as one step toward stemming Russia’s pro-war propaganda.
Latin America may become the next region to expose childhood clerical sexual abuse. Some victims have spent decades without coming forward because of the importance given to clergy in the community. But a growing number of people are creating support networks for survivors.
French President Emmanuel Macron secures a second term in office. Acknowledging that “numerous” voters cast ballots for him simply to keep out the fiercely nationalist far-right Marine Le Pen, he pledged to reunite the country.
Through glittering costumes, provocative floats and bold song lyrics, several samba schools at this year’s Carnival — the first since the pandemic hit — are paying tribute to the country’s Black history while also lambasting the racism and violence that Black Brazilians continue to face.
India's first female comic superhero has previously tackled issues like masking up during COVID-19, surviving assault, trafficking and acid attacks. On Earth Day, Priya has returned — astride her faithful flying tiger — to show young children the power of collective action in tackling air pollution.
To an American audience, toddlers crossing the road to go to the supermarket unsupervised or helping with household chores would be considered alarming or negligent. But in Japan, children as young as 6 can be seen taking the train or walking to school. And it’s not viewed as something unusual.
Bill Browder, CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management and author of "Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath," was once a big investor in Russia. He spoke to The World's host Marco Werman about whether sanctions against Russia are working as intended.
Saudi Arabia could deport a group of Uyghurs, including a mom and her 13-year-old daughter, to China. The news has alarmed human rights advocates who say they could face inhumane treatment upon return.
Surging oil prices are hurting everyday consumers in Africa, but some oil-producing countries have seen a windfall with higher revenues — boosting investment spending in other areas.
Many Ukrainian Americans feel connected to Ukraine’s history and independence, including scholar Katja Kolcio. She writes about her family’s work preserving Ukrainian culture as immigrants in the US.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive into the typology of disobedience and patterns of behavior that recur between and through wars.
For some Georgians, Stalin represents a rags-to-riches tale — they see him as the country’s most-famous native son who put Georgia on the map. Others are pushing for a more comprehensive view of the man responsible for millions of deaths.
Shchedryk Children’s Choir from Kyiv was poised to celebrate its 50th anniversary this year with a world tour. Then, Russia invaded Ukraine, canceling all plans. Conductor Saul Zaks is now on a mission to make sure the world hears the choir’s "magical" sounds.
Libraries are sharing knowledge so that when the war is over, Ukraine can see its cultural treasures rescued and restored.
Thousands of people are pursuing protection from gender-based violence in a US asylum system that was gutted during the presidency of Donald Trump and has been only partially restored by President Joe Biden. Deisy Ramírez was one of them, trying to escape an abusive, forced marriage in Guatemala.
El Shafee Elsheikh, a former British citizen accused of taking part in a brutal ISIS hostage-taking scheme, has been convicted in a federal court in Virginia of assisting in the kidnapping and deaths of four Americans between 2012 and 2015.
Women and girls living in poverty face many forms of discrimination and pressure during events like flood disasters.
Whether the state should be involved in telling individuals what they should and shouldn’t do on their days off has been hotly disputed in parts of the country.
The Boston Marathon has long been a haven for runners from across the globe. This year marks the first race on Patriots’ Day since 2019, as the world’s most famous marathon returns to full strength — or, at least, something like it. While the celebration of running has been years in the making, April 18 will be another loss in a flood of sacrifice for Ukrainians.
At least 10 Berlin organizations are working together to provide new arrivals with information on where to access LGBTQ-friendly accommodation, legal advice and health care.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter, takes a deep dive this week into how militaries adapt to new fights with new machines, social structures, technology or behaviors that can all impact the specific realities of war.
Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara Murza was arrested earlier this week in Moscow. He was sentenced to 15 days in jail in Moscow Tuesday for "disobeying a police order." Kara-Murza is a Kremlin critic and has publicly spoken out against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Host Marco Werman with Vladimir Kara-Murza's wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza.
When Shanghai residents test positive for COVID-19 and are required to stay at quarantine facilities, there's no government plan for who will take care of their pets while they're away. Now, communities are banding together to deal with the problem.
When activist and politician Sunny Cheung fled from Hong Kong to the US two years ago, he thought he would be free. But his troubles followed him there, where he says he's received threats on social media through what appear to be "fake accounts."
Pressure is heating up inside Germany, with vocal politicians and the public calling for a complete embargo on Russian fossil fuels.
Many of the tens of thousands of Ukrainian seafarers who boarded ships before the war started are now struggling to get off: either in the hopes of staying in the countries they land in — or flying back to Europe. In the US, the shipping industry is asking Customs and Border Protection to revisit decisions in these cases.
The World’s Patrick Winn spoke with Nigel Ng, "Uncle Roger," about foodies, cultural appropriation and the universality of the grumpy uncle.
An abortion-rights activist charged with breaking Poland’s strict abortion laws goes on trial in Warsaw next week. The case is the first of its kind in Europe.
As part of our regular series of conversations with Harvard University’s T.H. Chan’s School of Public Health, The World’s reporter Elana Gordon moderated a discussion with Michael VanRooyen, director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, about the dire situation and the multiple health risks that refugees from Ukraine, and from around the world, face. VanRooyen is also the chairman of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (@HHI).
Romania's local deaf community in Botoșani has welcomed at least 200 deaf people from Ukraine since the war began. They are focused on getting people to safety and ensuring that up-to-date information is available for sign language speakers.
Caste was outlawed decades ago across South Asia. But it still exists and has found its way to American campuses.
"The West, in order to help diplomacy, needs to help President [Volodomyr] Zelenskiy produce stalemate on the battlefield," former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said. He joined The World's host Marco Werman to discuss the West's diplomatic push to the end the war in Ukraine.
Canada plans to accept unlimited numbers of Ukrainians fleeing the ongoing Russian invasion. Meanwhile, progress remains slow in the resettlement of 40,000 Afghans.
Maia Mikhaluk's daughter Sasha was 38 weeks pregnant when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began. Then last week, just as Kyiv entered lockdown and battles raged in the city’s suburbs, Sasha was rushed to the hospital with contractions. The baby, Briana, was born the next day without incident. The new grandmother said that the baby's arrival has brightened what have otherwise been grim days.
Many households in India use a clay stove fueled by firewood, coal, cow dung, or even dry leaves, paper or plastic — which all emit excessive, harmful smoke. Poor women and children bear the brunt of this insidious indoor pollution.
Thousands of Haitians have been removed from the US since President Joe Biden took office, largely under Title 42, the pandemic-era protocol enacted by the Trump administration two years ago. In his off hours, Rodney Montreuil is devoted to helping those who get to stay.
Two years later, that policy is still in effect and thousands of people are stuck on the Mexico side of the US-Mexico border, living in crowded shelters, on the street, or in otherwise precarious situations.
The tiny, Western-leaning, post-Soviet country of Moldova not only borders Ukraine but has seen part of its territory occupied by Russian troops since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many Moldovans worry they could be Russia’s next target.
In a speech that touched on America’s darkest days and most inspirational leaders, Ukraine’s embattled president made a powerful call for stronger action on Russia.
More than 3 million people have fled Ukraine in the violence of the past three weeks. At the same time, a smaller, more privileged migration route is emerging in eastern cities like Istanbul.
When the pandemic hit his home city of Istanbul, Ahmet Faruk picked up an old passion: drawing. He wandered around the city, looking for forgotten, underappreciated buildings. Then, he brought them to life on the pages of his sketchbook. Lately, he has been focusing on Islamic architecture, specifically, mosque domes and minarets.
Former US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor joined The World's host Marco Werman to discuss Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's emotional speech to US Congress and the American response so far to Russia's invasion into Ukraine.
Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into how the East India Company claimed sovereignty for itself through war.
The library’s reopening on Feb. 19 represents a significant milestone in the return of arts and literature to a city whose culture became a target of the militants.
It's a situation that many Ukrainians with families watching Russian state media propaganda are finding themselves in — trying to share the painful reality of war in Ukraine with their loved ones in Russia, who may or may not believe them.
Zin Mar Aung is the minister of foreign affairs for Myanmar's revolutionary National Unity Government. She spoke to The World about her government’s quest for recognition, no-fly zones and parallels between Myanmar and Ukraine.
Many Russian expats are appalled by the war in Ukraine. Some are even speaking out. But many say they're also experiencing verbal abuse and hate speech as the war in Ukraine continues.
What is it about Anna Delvey and Simon Leviev and how do gender and gender relations play a role in their schemes?
With nice warm weather and no predators, the hippos have flourished. But they're seen as a threat to people and the environment.
Climate change could be disastrous for human civilization, warns a new report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
For the more than 17,000 Ukrainians who have applied for UK visas under the Ukrainian Family Scheme, the application process has created a bottleneck in Calais.
Ethiopia’s federal government has mobilized FANO, an Amhara militia group,glad since the fighting broke out in November 2020 in Tigray.
African and Latin American countries have been struggling to control inflation rates during the pandemic. The war in Ukraine threatens to increase food prices even more and make hunger in some countries worse.
Thousands of tourists from Ukraine and Russia are stuck in popular destinations around the world as many countries suspended air traffic with Russia or banned Russian aircrafts from flying over its territory.
In the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and on the east of the country, museums and churches have already been targeted as Moscow escalates its bombardment of civilian areas. Meanwhile, the residents of Lviv race to ensure their city does not suffer the same fate.
The ongoing drought in South America has led to wildfires in wetlands that are typically wet enough to avoid them. Firefighters now have them largely under control in northern Argentina, but with climate change, and the cattle industry, wildfires are increasingly expected to be a threat to nature and wildlife in the region.
This week's Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter, takes a deep dive into how autocrats stay in power through the repression. Too much repression can lead to a people's revolt whereas not enough can result in military coups.
In the Ukrainian city of Odessa, fears of an attack there have led thousands to flee across the border.
Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon, a historian and a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, has been following Griner's case closely. She joined The World's Marco Werman to discuss the risks that Griner now faces in Russian detention.
While fighting has lulled in Amhara since December after federal forces pushed out the TPLF, the region is still struggling to recover. To date, many areas still don’t have electricity, running water, or adequate food.
Ukrainian children, refugees and military personnel will be among those hardest hit with PTSD due to the Russian invasion.
The western city of Lviv is regarded as one of the safest parts of Ukraine, at least for now. On the first day of the invasion, an airport 80 miles southeast to Lviv was bombed by Russian forces but no fighting has occurred in the city itself.
Though Poland has taken in the bulk of refugees, two of Europe’s poorest nations — Romania and Moldova — have accepted more than 160,000 people so far.
In 2006, finding a live Fréderic Chopin concert in Warsaw was harder than expected. American pianist Pamela Howland made it her life’s mission to revive Chopin in Warsaw, Poland, the composer’s hometown.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who worked in the White House as the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, joined The World's host Carol Hills to discuss the current outlook and specific military strategies used by both Ukraine and Russia.
While several European countries have welcomed Ukrainian refugees, the reception and treatment of refugees trying to reach Europe from the Middle East and Africa is quite different. H.A. Hellyer, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says implicit bias creates this double standard.
Katia Glod, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, joined The World's host Marco Werman to talk about Belarus' role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Ghana is one of a handful of countries to launch a national plastic pollution plan backed by the World Economic Forum and the United Nations Development Program.
The United States dealt a major blow to ISIS in Syria last week with the assassination of the group’s leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi. But experts say that does not that spell the end of the terror group that once held large swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq.
A new book teaches that the Zen Buddhist practice of mindfulness can help us break out of a destructive cycle of consumption and live in harmony with the planet.
Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive into one of Kenya's alternative security provisions and an effort to increase police accountability.
The 2022 campaign season in the Philippines officially kicked off on Tuesday with presidential campaign rallies across the country. It’s the start of a 90-day sprint to Election Day on May 9. Ten candidates are running to replace current president Rodrigo Duterte, who is term-limited.
Last week, 19 migrants froze to death near a Turkish village on the border with Greece. Their deaths shed new light on pushbacks, which witnesses say are routine.
Troop buildups and diplomatic negotiations highlight the threat of a major land war in Europe. In cyberspace, Russia has been attacking Ukrainian infrastructure and government operations for years.
A growing number of Holocaust historians worry that Poland’s ruling far-right government is trying to cover up the darker side of the country’s past.
Mangeshkar, also known as the Queen of Melody, was cremated with full state honors in Mumbai on Sunday, a funeral attended by film and music luminaries as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Legendary Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar has died at the age of 92. In her honor, India declared two days of national mourning and lowered the country’s flags through Monday.
Moïse Kabagambe, 24, was beaten to death while attempting to collect unpaid wages. His death has spurred calls for justice and accountability in a country where a young Black person is killed every 23 minutes.
Kenya's next presidential elections are set for August, but many voters say they no longer see the point in voting. This has led to the low number of people who have registered to vote.
Since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula and invaded eastern Ukraine, the government in Kyiv has transformed its approach to national security.
Mourners have begun preparations for the funeral of 5-year-old Rayan Oram, who fell into a deep well a few days ago, after his body was retrieved. The boy's plight garnered international attention and scores of people from all over the country are expected to attend the funeral to pay their respects.
Russia probably has the means to attack US electrical grids and otherwise create havoc but probably won’t go that far. Instead, watch for disinformation aimed at undermining the US and NATO.
Dan Saladino, author of "Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them," talks with The World's host Marco Werman about dwindling diversity within the global food system and how we can change it toward a more sustainable future.
Since November, snow cannons have used about 49 million gallons of water to manufacture snow for the Winter Games in Beijing. But environmentalists worry that this could cause water scarcity in an already dry region.
Anyone who came across Ah Too a little more than a year ago would’ve seen a skinny, sleep-famished guy hunched over a laptop.
The new monument at the Treblinka railway station has raised concerns among Holocaust historians about how Poland's current far-right government is distorting history.
Go_A Band from Kyiv includes Kateryna Pavlenko (vocals) and Taras Shevchenko (founder/keyboard and percussion). They represented Ukraine last year at the Eurovision Song Contest. Hear what's on their minds right now — and a little of their music, too.
Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive into how state institutions lose their relationships with citizens during civil wars — with a focus on Afghanistan.
Lead contamination in drinking water can have serious impacts on growing brains, including cognitive issues in the short term and mental illnesses years after the exposure ends.
Russia has continued to build up its forces near Ukraine’s borders in the tens of thousands. The US and other Western powers are saying that an expanded war is imminent, while Russia says that it has no plans for war.
Far from simply entertaining troops, Dr. Hannah Ha learned, her mom had been a recording artist who worked with South Vietnam’s top composers in the scene’s 1960s heyday. She performed under the stage name Phương Tâm.
Many Indigenous communities who depend on the Ecuadorian Amazon’s Coca River are seeing the impact of the oil spill — even hundreds of miles away.
More than 2,000 Afghans are currently living at an upscale hotel in Albania, awaiting visa processing for the US and Canada. But behind the luxurious façade — guilt and uncertainty reign.
Ugandan poet Stella Nyanzi talks about her friend, the satirist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, and his torture while recently under military detention. His crime? Calling Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's son "obese" in a series of tweets last December.
For years, human rights groups and families of the detainees have called for the repatriation of these prisoners, but this has become a highly political issue because home countries refuse to take them back.
The Philippines is one of several countries that have kept students out of the classroom the longest since the start of the pandemic. Lacking critical resources to sustain virtual learning, the situation leaves teachers, students and parents across Metro Manila exhausted and frustrated.
In Brazil, 1,258 Indigenous people have died from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Saudi-led coalition carried out airstrikes in Yemen last Friday, hitting two separate targets: a detention center, where migrants are held, and a telecommunications tower, cutting off internet access for most of the country for four days. At least 60 people were killed in the attack, including three children.
Many Native American communities belong to a clan that identifies with an animal — such as the bear, deer, or loon — that is featured in their traditional stories.